About two percent of the water on our planet covers its surface in frozen form. That is more than double the volume found in rivers, lakes and the atmosphere, the bulk of our fresh water. Global warming threatens to shift this ratio dramatically. In his latest work, Nikolaus Geyrhalter finds opulent images of a world of ice and snow, conjuring up a lively idea of the impending great melt.
From 2021 to 2025, he visited snow-covered landscapes in Japan’s north-western province of Niigata, the Swiss Aletsch Glacier, and a village in the East Tyrolean mountains. In the Inuvik region in Canada, he learns that the streets are only passable during the frost period and family celebrations can only be held then. He observes how precisely constructed snow walls attract hundreds of onlookers in Japanese Toyama, how the French ski resort of Val d’Isère tries to save itself with snow cannons while ski lifts are dismantled in Austrian Dachstein. Whether it is the Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland, which now also melts in winter, or the German research station Neumayer III on the Ekström Ice Shelf in Antarctica – Geyrhalter meets people whose lives are shaped by the forces of nature everywhere. And they all sense that they might be the last generation to live with the beauty of ice and snow.