Galya Morrel

Born in 1961 into a family of Komi reindeer herders and Pomor hunters, she has spent more than half a century living and journeying through the High North. In the early 1980s, as a young reporter, she began traveling by reindeer and dog sled with the nomadic Indigenous peoples of
Siberia—immersing herself in their way of life and sharing their stories with the world.

This deep immersion into Arctic cultures became the foundation of her artistic language. Galya works at the intersection of body and ice, crafting visual performances in a rare genre of synthetic visual art staged on drifting sea ice. In her work, she fuses tradition and modernity, the
Indigenous and the unfamiliar. Most of her exhibitions began as portable, nomadic projects—traveling by reindeer, Yakutian Arctic horse, dog sled, donkey, camel, tractor, or small open boat to the most remote settlements across Siberia, Greenland, Africa, South America, and Central Asia.

These journeys eventually evolved into larger collaborative missions. Together with Greenlandic polar explorer and actor Ole Jorgen Hammeken, Galya co-founded Expedition Avannaa, an eyewitness cultural expedition to the world’s most isolated communities affected by climate and societal change. It offers a unique view of the people and their natural habitats in the hardest-to- reach places—places that remain invisible to decision makers and global audiences alike.

In 2015, Galya and Ole Jorgen founded Arctic Without Borders, a citizen diplomacy initiative dedicated to building cultural bridges across the circumpolar North through collaboration and knowledge exchange among its smallest, most vulnerable communities.

Driven by a deep commitment to the next generation, Galya has also co-founded several cultural projects aimed at preventing the epidemic of juvenile suicides in the Arctic. Through both her artistic and educational work, she strives not only to preserve traditional Arctic knowledge and
identity—but to help it thrive.