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Acacia Johnson (born 1990) is an American photographer from Alaska who since 2014 has focused on the polar regions. She has made over fifty expeditions to Greenland, the Norwegian island of
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Acacia 1990 births Artists from Anchorage, Alaska 21st-century American photographers American polar explorers Female polar explorers Rhode Island School of Design alumni Living people American expatriates in Norway University of Virginia alumni 21st-century American women photographers
Acacia Johnson (born 1990) is an American photographer from Alaska who since 2014 has focused on the polar regions. She has made over fifty expeditions to Greenland, the Norwegian island of Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...
, the Canadian Arctic and Antarctica, lecturing on photography and indigenous peoples. Johnson has contributed to ''National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'', most recently in a feature on Baffin Island
Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ...
(September 2019). Her work forms part of the permanent collections of the Smithsonian and the Anchorage Museum.
Biography
Born inAnchorage, Alaska
Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
in 1990, during her childhood she was keen on following wildlife including grizzly bear
The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America.
In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...
s. In 2008, she was an exchange student at Narvik Upper Secondary School in Narvik
( se, Áhkanjárga) is the third-largest municipality in Nordland county, Norway, by population. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Narvik. Some of the notable villages in the municipality include Ankenesstranda, Ball ...
, Norway. The year she spent there encouraged her to embark on a career as a photographer, thanks to a course on media and communications and the magic light she discovered in the polar circle. After spending a few years in Norway, she studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design.
As a result of successfully focusing on photography in the polar regions, she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship. It brought her to Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic where she was able to study the local population in an Inuit village.
Johnson explains that she is not the first one in her family to be interested in photography: "Both my grandfather and my father took pictures all the time. I got my first camera when I was nine. I have always been artistic but I think the reason I chose photography was because it is not only a form of artistic expression, it also offers a means of engaging with the world".
Since October 2019, Acacia Johnson has been based in Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
, where she is following a course in creative writing at the University of Virginia. She intends to develop her photographic and writing skills in either fiction or in photo books with descriptive essays.
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Acacia 1990 births Artists from Anchorage, Alaska 21st-century American photographers American polar explorers Female polar explorers Rhode Island School of Design alumni Living people American expatriates in Norway University of Virginia alumni 21st-century American women photographers