“There is something about th💞is archipelago that is both grander and gentler than words can express,” Queen Sonja of Norway says of Svalbard, a cluster of islands nestled within the Arctic Circle. “It can only be described through art.”

^{QUEEN SONJA AT ARTICA SVALBARD. PHOTOGRAPH BY OLAV T. SØLA.}

Queen Sonja has become a great patron of the arts in Scandinavia. In 2012 she founded a bi-annual international award for graphic artists, which Sotheby’s is proud to support. And now she is the figurehead for an artist-in-residence programme here at the edge of the world. As an accomplished printmaker herself, the Queen h🌠as a particular fondness for Svalbard: its ice caves inspired some of her first works.

^{TIINA KIVINEN SETTING UP HER STUDIO AT ARTICA SVALBARD. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.} 

I recently visited this far-flung Norwegian territory for the launch of the scheme, and could see how ဣthe stark, silent landscape – with its midnight sun, sꦛhrouded peaks and vast glaciers – would beguile an artist. A workshop, with a printing press and studios, has been set up in Longyearbyen, a former mining town that is the islands’ main settlement.

^{A VIEW OF SVALBARD, 2017. PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN HOUSE.} 

The Foundation programme, supported by the and several other partners, will provide residencies o꧃f between three and nine months for both visual artis💃ts and writers. The intention is to fuel cultural, ecological and geopolitical discussions surrounding the Arctic.

Battling the weather - minus 20 degrees, spiked with a wind-chill - I tramped through the snow to the opening of the workshop. While Svalbard is cinematic in its scope it can be merciless: the weather turns in an i🔯nstant and Polar Bears are a genuine threat. Locals carry rifles.

^{QUEEN SONJA AT ARTICA SVALBARD. PHOTOGRAPH BY OLAV T. SØLA.}

The first artist to take up residence here is Tiina Kivinen, a Finnish printmaker who won the inaugural Queen 🍎Sonja Print Award. Her eerieꦇ mezzotints, with their spindly trees and silhouetted figures, seem a perfect fit for this harsh but beautiful topography.

Talking to me at the opening, she expressed her love of the “w🌌hite cold ✤Nordic light.” But Svalbard is special. “An artist is also an explorer,” Kivinen noted. “But I have never been to a place like this. This is like a winter wonderland.” And, of course, it is a wonderland with Royal approval.