Constructions of North landscape / imagery / society

Thursday January 23 the fourth conference on northern landscapes in connection with the Arctic Frontiers took place. After a welcoming introduction by Janike Kampevold Larsen the following speakers, and moderator Andrew Morrison, contributed to a highly inspirational and interesting day:
William L. Fox - Backwards Landscape the Reading
Johan Schimanski - Constructing imagery, narratives of the Arctic
Stepa Mitaki - Inspiring citizens to change Murmansk through participatory planning
Kathleen John-Alder - The House We Live In: Ian McHarg’s Adaptable Concept of Habitat
Aileen A. Espiritu - Shifting rhetoric – From Barents to Arctic
Stine Barlindhaug - Constructing cultural landscapes through participatory mapping
Silje Figenschou Thoresen - The Indigenuity Project, Improvised design in Sápmi
Arvid Viken - Construction of knowledge: Tourism, research, and governmental institutions building Svalbard as image and place
Larissa Riabova and Vladimir Didyk - Arctic Single-Industry Towns in Russia: social problems, ways to solve them and the role of resource corporations

seminar: positions

Åsa Sonjasdotter, artist and professor at the Tromsø Art Academy organized the highly interesting and inspirational seminar on positions within art. Invited speakers:

Hanna Horsberg Hansen:
On the essay A Story About Sámi Traditions in Transition about the mural decorations for a new school in Láhpoluoppal by artists Synnøve Persen, Aage Gaup, Josef Halse, Ingunn Utsi and Maja Dunfjeld. This artistic collaboration paved the way for vastly important changes in Sámi art. New stories of Sámi art began, stories that exceed the methods and discourses of Art History.

Matti Aikio:
On topics concerning reindeer herding and art production in Finnmark. Aikio is a visual artist who works with photography, video, installations and sculpture. Aikio is interested in the concept of nomadism as a philosophy, culture and way of life.

Fernando García-Dory: On his practice as artist and agro-ecologist, a work which engages specifically with issues affecting the relation between culture-nature, embodied within the contexts of landscape, the rural, desires and expectations related with identity aspects, crisis, utopia and social change. Interested in the harmonic complexity of biological forms and processes, his work addresses connections and cooperation, from microorganisms to social systems, and from traditional art languages such as drawing to collaborative agroecological projects, actions, and cooperatives.