Dominika Gęsicka This is not real life

There is a place where no one is born and no one dies. Of course you can die anywhere but you cannot be buried here as it has been discovered that bodies fail to decompose here. You cannot be born here because pregnant women are to return to the mainland to give birth. There are no cats, no trees, no traffic lights. There is no amusement park, but there is a circus troupe. In the winter time it is completely dark, but in the summer sun never sets. The place is called Longyearbyen and it is the largest settlement and an administrative center of Svalbard. It is also the world’s northernmost city. Although it is difficult to regard it the best place to live, many people fall in love with it at first sight. Some people come here just for two weeks and stay for five years or more, but not many decide to settle down here permanently. Sometimes you have an impression that people here are trying to escape from something; that this is just a retreat. This is not real life…

Dominika Gęsicka was born in 1981 in Włocławek, Poland. Graduated from International Affairs at the Warsaw School of Economics (Poland), student of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (Czech Republic). Laureate of the ShowOFF programme, Krakow Photomonth i(2014). Winner of the IdeasTap and Magnum Photos grant (2015).

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