Norwegian photographer Christian Houge came across Barentsburg, a Russian coal-mining outpost in the far north, by chance in 1983 during a snowmobile trip. He subsequently returned several times to document this life seemingly untouched by time or the external world.

In his panoramic photographs Houge captures the isolation and melancholy of the community living in its preserved 70s style of design, and the contrast between the epic white arctic landscape and the coal that is extracted from it. The spectacularly bleak photographs measure two meters wide.

More recently, Houge has spent four years photographing the Norwegian island of Svalbard, located between Greenland and the North Pole.

Houge's Arctic Technology series explores man's search for knowledge in a primal arctic landscape that is known as one of the cleanest places on earth. Enormous technological structures enable scientists to study climate change, sea levels, atmospheric pollution and space itself, and represent man's search for meaning and communication.

Houge's large format panoramic photographs capture antenna fields used to measure the earth's atmosphere and satellite receivers which send and receive invisible information from space. Several were photographed in pure moonlight using very long exposure times, becoming almost religious monuments to man in the endless arctic landscape.

Christian Houge has had numerous exhibitions in his native Oslo. In 2004-05 he received two year-long grants from the Department of Culture and the Norwegian Artists Fund.