Rephotography: a tool for field guides

There are many types of climate research that are being conducted in Longyearbyen, Ny-Ålesund, and on scientific expeditions. However, data that is extrapolated is often difficult to interpret if one is not trained in the natural or social sciences.

Rephotography can become a mediating factor regarding the story telling of how the climate is changing as well as a communicating process to demonstrate culture and cultural remains.

Photographs as visual sources function as a testimony to what a place once looked like. Rephotography gives the opportunity to educate visitors through by letting them physically visit a place while visually experience how that place has changed over the course of time.

Another aspect of rephotography is that it transcends language. One is able to understand the degree of change without having to speak the same language as the presenter.