Marta Bevacqua’s Signs_ traces the evolution of a childhood dream, sparked by a novel at age twelve, into a lifelong connection with Svalbard. Published by Setanta Books in 2025, the book gathers work made between 2016 and 2024, when Bevacqua returned to the archipelago five times, always in winter. Each visit revealed a new aspect of the landscape: from the polar night to the first return of sunlight, from snowstorms to melting ice. In a place where nature sets the rhythm, nothing stays the same.

Her imagery blends landscape photography with symbolic elements—like a red sweater marking human presence—alongside Polaroid experiments and surreal visions of the Arctic moon. These are not documentary records alone but signs, traces that memory, solitude, and the fragile balance between humans and nature leave behind. The cloth hardback measures 260 by 220 millimeters and contains 128 pages with 89 images, giving the sequence room to unfold without overstatement.

What distinguishes Signs_ is its long view. Bevacqua does not treat Svalbard as a backdrop for a single expedition but as a place of return and reflection—a refuge as much as a destination. The winter-only rhythm sharpens the contrast between stillness and transformation, and recurring motifs keep the photographs from becoming a simple travelogue. The result is a visual meditation on silence, time, and the signs nature leaves behind.

For readers drawn to Arctic photography, Signs_ offers a sustained body of work by a single photographer whose vision remains consistent across eight years. The first edition, in cloth, is a considered object: modest in scale, generous in sequencing, and clear about its subject.