when one learns of Maria Lax’s Lappish roots in northern Finland, the fantastical saturation of her photographs begins to crystalize, and to recall that phenomenon peculiar to the northern reaches of the globe, the aurora borealis. With the region’s extremes of weather, atmosphere, and light, it is perhaps unsurprising that there is a history of mystical and supernatural episodes there. Lax’s 2020 project, Some Kind of Heavenly Fire, pairs her own photographs with family pictures and newspaper clippings that her grandfather collected recording a lifetime of UFO sightings in the area. The result is an ambiguous local—and family—history. Lax writes, “The UFO sightings embodied a fear of the future, the unknown.… Some reacted to the mysterious lights with fear, some took them as a sign they were not alone.”
– Eugenia Bell
