Art has a responsibility to disrupt, provoke, and create dialogue around issues as overwhelming as climate change and biodiversity loss, environmental photographer and anthropological investigator Christian Houge told audiences at the Xposure International Photography Festival (Xposure 2026) on Sunday.

Speaking during his session “Residence of Impermanence: How can we reconnect to Nature?” at Aljada in Sharjah, the Norwegian artist presented a body of work that confronts humanity’s growing detachment from the natural world — a disconnection he argues has accelerated environmental collapse.

Houge’s exhibition Residence of Impermanence, on display at Xposure 2026, brings together three photographic series that explore destruction, preservation, and technological intervention. One of the most arresting works documents the ritual burning of taxidermied animals, which Houge collected and restored over seven years before staging their destruction against hand-crafted English wallpapers.

“This series is not about destruction for me,” Houge said. “It is about liberation. These animals have been standing in limbo with collectors for 70 or 80 years. I set them free.” He added that the wallpapers symbolised trophy hunting as animperial practice — “something I am burning up.”

Coming from a hunting family, Houge described the project as a personal reckoning. By burning animals such as lions and elk, he said he sought to awaken human conscience and challenge the commodification of wildlife in the Anthropocene era. The act, he explained, was intended as spiritual rather than sensational.

The exhibition also addresses the accelerating effects of climate change through images of Switzerland’s Rhône Glacier, which has been covered with fabric in an attempt to slow the melting of ice. “The glaciers will be completely gone within one generation,” Houge warned, adding that the consequences extend far beyond visual loss. “Climate migration is going to be a very big thing,” he said, pointing to the Himalayan glaciers that provide fresh water to nearly a billion people.

A third series examines the presence of advanced technology in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, where climate research stations, satellite infrastructure, and surveillance systems sit within an otherwise pristine landscape. Describing technology as a double-edged sword, Houge drew attention to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a concrete, brutalist structure designed to withstand natural disasters and even nuclear fallout.

Through these works, Houge said his aim is not to aestheticise crisis, but to humanise nature and remind audiences that humanity is inseparable from the ecosystems it continues to exploit.

The 10th edition of the Xposure International Photography Festival, held under the theme “A Decade of Visual Storytelling”, runs from 29 January to 4 February 2026 at Aljada, Sharjah.