Opening – Thursday, October, 24. 2024. – 6 p.m.

Venue – Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center
District VI., 8. Nagymező Street – Budapest

The exhibition will be introduced by: Lars Ole SAUGNES – Managing Director – Kings Bay AS Ingrig KJERSTAD – Research Manager – Norwegian Polar Research Institute.

Present: István VIRÁGVÖLGYI professional director of the Capa Center.
The exhibition will be opened by Tamás VITRAY Jr. editor-in-chief of National Geography Hungary.

Exhibitor: photographer Esther HORVÁTH – Alfred Wegener Institute – Helmholtz Arctic and Marine Research Center. Curator: art historian Katalin KOPIN.

Photographer – Esther Horváth has been focusing on documenting arctic climate research since 2015. She has already photographed 25 Arctic research expeditions. For five years, she has been following the work of the international scientific research base comprising ten countries operating in Ny-Ålesund on the Norwegian Svalbard Islands, the settlement located at the northernmost point of the world. Svalbard is the epicenter of global warming, where the average winter temperature has risen by 6-8 °C since 1991; this growth is much faster than anywhere else on the planet. Here, more than four months of the year are dominated by the darkness of arctic winter. The stories and pictures of the exhibition “Stars of the Arctic Night” present the daily life and scientific research work taking place in the arctic night. A very important part of the spectacular exhibition is the special series of portraits of women scientists, Women of Arctic Science, which aims to inspire the next generation of female scientists and explorers by introducing them to the life, motivation and work of female researchers working in the Arctic.

Short biography – Esther Horváth is a photographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, a National Geographic Explorer and a member of the International Association of Conservation Photographers. She won the first prize in the Environmental category of the World Press Photo competition in 2020. In 2022, she received the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. In 2024, she was honored with a National Geographic Wayfinder Award for his work in science, conservation, education, technology and storytelling.
Born in Sopron, she graduated from the University of Western Hungary with a degree in economics. Following her passion for photography, she moved to New York in 2012 to study at ICP, where she graduated with a degree in documentary filmmaking and photojournalism. She lived in New York for six years, then moved to Germany in 2018, where she still lives.
Her documented twenty-four scientific expeditions in the Arctic and the Antarctic. In 2019-20, she participated in the MOSAiC expedition, which is considered the largest scientific expedition in the Arctic Ocean ever, and the book published from the photos she took there was published by Prestel Verlag. Esther Horvath’s work has been published by National Geographic – The New York Times – GEO, Stern, TIME and The Guardian, among others.

The exhibition can be viewed during October, 25. 2024 – January, 31. 2025.
Timetable: Tuesday–Friday: 1–6 p.m, Saturday–Sunday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m, Closed on Mondays and public holidays.

Update: Aggie Reiter