DAY 2

Timo Jokela (FI)

The opening speaker

Timo Jokela is Professor of Art Education in the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland. He is also head of University of Arctic’s thematic network on Arctic sustainable art and design. He was also a visiting professor of Art Education and Environmental Art at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland (2006–2011). He has been responsible for several international and regional action research projects in the field of art education. Jokela works actively as an environmental artist, often using natural materials and the local cultural heritage as a starting point for his works. He has realized several exhibitions, environmental art, and community art projects in Finland and abroad. Jokela has published several articles and books.

Julius Oförsagd (FI)

Moderator of the day

Julius Oförsagd is the CEO and Creative Director of his own company Arctic Factory. Julius, a producer and a design consultant, graduated from the University of Lapland with a Master of Art and Design. Julius believes clever Arctic designs are the solution to a sustainable and long lasting Arctic region and is passionate about giving arctic design the platform it deserves. Julius has been working with many kind of industries doing projects from healthcare development, architecture and tourism to theater, films and events. Julius has been producing the world’s northernmost design week nine years. Julius has a passion to make dreams come true and is constantly dreaming beyond now and designing a better future.

Dieter K. Müller (SE)

Keynote speaker

Dieter K. Müller is professor in human geography, Umeå University and currently, he is Deputy Vice-chancellor with special responsibility for research, research education and outreach within the Social Sciences, the Humanities and the Arts. Dieter has research interests with respect to tourism and regional development, mobility and tourism in peripheral areas. His research interests specifically include almost all aspects of second homes and second home related mobility, Sami tourism, nature-based tourism, tourism labor markets, regional development and rural change particularly in Northern peripheries and Polar areas. At the moment he is leading a project on the Arctification of northern tourism. He is also the head of the board of the Arctic Research Centre at Umeå University (Arcum) and chairperson for the International Geographical Union Commission for the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Change.

Riitta Kaivosoja (FI)

Ms. Riitta Kaivosoja is Director General at the Department for Art and Cultural Policy at the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland. Her main responsibilities include art and cultural policy, cultural heritage, audiovisual culture, copyright issues, church affairs, strategic planning and resources. She has worked at the Ministry since 1990, her extensive career including work with both education and cultural policies. Before that, she worked with legal issues at the Regional Administration of Häme and the City court of Jyväskylä.

Arctic Laboratory I - Art in the Arctic and Artic in the Arts: ministerial reflections and Q&A

Frida Blomgren (NO)

Ms Frida Blomgren was appointed as State Secretary by the King in Council on 16 February. Blomgren was first appointed as a political adviser in the Ministry of Culture in Norway on 17 January 2018.

David Ek (SEI

David Ek is Head of Section placed in the Division for the Arts at the Swedish Ministry of Culture, with responsibilities including Nordic, Baltic and Arctic cooperation, the culture of the Sámi people and the national minorities of Sweden as well as social inclusion in the context of cultural policy. He is an expert in the European Commission’s Open Method of Coordination group on Culture and Social Inclusion and has chaired several senior officials’ working groups in the Nordic, Barents Euro-Arctic and Baltic cooperation.

Tiina Sanila-Aikio (FI)

Tiina Sanila-Aikio or Paavvâl Taannâl Tiina is the President of the Sámi Parliament of Finland. Sanila-Aikio has been a member of the Sámi Parliament since 2012. She was elected the 1st Vice - President of the Sámi Parliament for the electoral term 2012-2015, and the President of the Sámi Parliament in March 2015 until the end of the electoral term 2012-2015. Sanila-Aikio was reelected as a President of the Sámi Parliament for the period 2016-2019 in February 2016. Before her presidency, Sanila-Aikio worked as a teacher of Skolt Sámi language and culture at the Sámi Education Institute in Inari. Moreover, she has been active in promoting the language and culture of the Skolt Sámi, for example providing teaching materials. Sanila-Aikio is also known as an artist who has performed in many ways, both in traditional and in modern ways of music. The other main occupation of the Sanila-Aikio family is reindeer herding.

Arctic Laboratory II . Arctic Culture Cooperation and Research and Education of Culture and Arts in the Arctic: ministerial and cultural sector reflections and Q&A

Baldur Þórir Guðmundsson (IS)

Baldur Þórir Guðmundsson is a senior advisor at the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Iceland. He holds a MSc in Strategy and Management. For the last 10 years he has served in the Committee of Culture and Education in his home town of Reykjanesbær. He has taken part in setting up museums, exhibitions and shows in various magnitudes around Iceland. He is an active musician and record producer and has performed and recorded with a multitude of Icelandic musicians. As cultural advisor for the ministry he is a representative to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and various museums and handles other diverse cultural projects.

Francesca Du Brock (USA)

Francesca Du Brock, chief curator at the Anchorage Museum, is focused on developing socially-engaged projects and exhibitions that reflect the diversity of people living in the North. Bilingualism, visual literacy, immigration, food culture, and Indigenous representation have been topics of recent exhibitions, projects and programming. Prior to joining the Anchorage Museum, Francesca worked at Kurimanzutto, a contemporary art gallery in Mexico City, and as an arts educator in San Francisco, Boston, and Alaska. She is fluent in Spanish and brings a passion for learning from, and through the arts to her current work. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Bowdoin College, a M.F.A. from the San Francisco Arts Institute, and a M.Ed. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

Arctic Laboratory III: Sustainability through Art and Culture in the Arctic

The theme of the panel is to discuss new ways of seeing arts and culture as principal for sustainable development of the Arctic and why it is of importance to keep the cultural and linguistic (UN year of indigenous languages 2019) diversity alive in the Arctic. Distinguished panelists represent Arctic arts, research and governance. Sustainable development is a key theme in all Arctic discussions but often its connection to art and culture is not strongly made. An illustration of this is the fact that the United Nations has 17 Sustainable Development Goals but arts and culture are not among them. Languages are also missing from the list. What thoughts does this situation raise? What are the visions, strategies and implementations of Arctic arts in the future? How research and practical development of Arctic arts and culture challenge policy and decision makers.

Jan Borm (FR)

Panel member

Jan Borm is Full Professor in British Literature and Vice-President in charge of International Relations at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) where he also co-directs the international interdisciplinary Masters 2 programme “Arctic Studies” affiliated with the excellence cluster “University of Paris-Saclay”. He has published widely on travel literature and Arctic travel writing in English, French and German, including a portrait of the French anthropo-geographer Jean Malaurie (Paris: editions du Chêne, 2005). He has co-edited ten collective volumes, including, most recently, Le froid. Adaptation, production, effets, représentations. Montréal : Presses de l’Université du Québec, coll. “Droit au Pôle”, 2018 and is scientific coordinator of the UVSQ team in the H2020 project EDU-ARCTIC.

Daniel Chartier

Panel member

Daniel Chartier is full professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Research Chair on Images of the North, Winter and the Arctic and director of the International Laboratory for Comparative Multidisciplinary Study of Representations of the North. In recent years, he has published some twenty books and a hundred articles on the representation of the North, the Arctic and Winter, Québec, Inuit and Nordic cultures, cultural pluralism, including The End of Iceland's Innocence (2010), Le lieu du Nord (2015), Le froid (2018) and a multilingual essay in 14 editions (in 14 languages of the North) on What is the ‘Imagined North’? Ethical principles. Over the course of his career, he has led many peer-reviewed projects which led to hundreds of public interventions (books, articles, chapters, interviews, conferences, communications, conference organizations). He has lectured in many universities, including Lund, Paris 3, Paris Sorbonne, Helsinki, Stockholm, Iceland, Greenland, Buenos Aires, Fribourg, Groningen and Yale.

Katya García-Antón

Panel member

Katya García-Antón has been Director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) since February 2014. Katya García-Antón obtained an MA in 19th and 20th century Art History from The Courtauld Institute of Arts London. Thereafter she worked at The Courtauld Institute of Art, BBC World Service (Latin American Broadcasts), Museo Nacional Reina Sofía Madrid, ICA London, IKON Birmingham and as Director of Centre d’Art Contemporain (CAC) Genève. She is responsible for more than 70 exhibitions of art, architecture and design of practitioners world-wide presented in art institutions in Europe, as well as Latin America and the Middle East.

Gunvor Guttorm (SE/NO)

Panel member

Gunvor Guttorm is a professor in duodji (Sámi arts and crafts, traditional art, applied art) at Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino in Norway. Currently she is rector at the same institution. Her research is interconnected with cultural expression in the Sámi and indigenous societies, especially duodji. The focus of her research deals with duodji in a contemporary setting and the indigenous people’s context. She also has had the good fortune to work with elderly duodji artisans and share their knowledge of traditional techniques. This has indeed benefited her theoretical work. In her approach, she has also tried to understand duodji of today by discussing what position and meaning it has and has had for the Sámi.

Tuuli Ojala (FI)

Panel member

Tuuli Ojala is Senior Specialist at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She is Finland’s Head of Delegation to Arctic Council Working Group on Sustainable Development and served as an Adviser to the Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials during the Finnish Chairmanship of the Arctic Council 2017-19.

Markku Heikkilä (FI)

Moderator

Markku Heikkilä works as the Head of science communications in the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. After studying journalism at Tampere University he had a long journalist career in newspaper Kaleva in Oulu. He has keenly followed the developments in international Northern and Arctic co-operation from its early stages and for this work, he got the State award for public information in 1997. He has written several books on these topics and the latest one, “If we lose the Arctic”, came out in winter 2019. At the Arctic Centre, his science communication work includes popularizing Arctic information for various audiences and participating to Arctic related policy work and stakeholder contacts. Currently he is also the editor of ArcticFinland portal and he is leading the international Rovaniemi Arctic Spirit conferences.

Panel Making visions true

Funding organizations hold a strong position to define what kind of art and culture is supported. In this panel discussion the leaders of most important funding organizations of the art and cultural field talk about their strategies and future perspectives. These notable panelists are challenged to ponder, how we can make circumpolar collaboration in art and culture possible and promote sustainability.

Staffan Forssell (SE)

Staffan Forssell is the Director General of the Swedish Arts Council and has a 25 year career in the field of culture. Mr Forssell has held senior positions in most fields of culture, including music, theatre, dance, film, museums and literature. From 2010 to 2014 he was the Director General of the Swedish Exhibition Agency and from 2008 to 2010 the CEO of the Stage Company in Sundsvall, Sweden. He has also been the managing director of the Swedish Army Museum and of Cosmonova at the Natural History Museum, as well as three years managing the mountain division of the Swedish Touring Club. Mr Forssell has a background as a physicist and prior to his career in culture he spent 8 years in the aviation industry as an officer in the Swedish Air Force where he was a flying weatherman and 5 years as an environmental specialist in the field of air pollution and global warming.

Ola Kellgren (SE/FI)

Panel member

Ola Kellgren, b. 1957, has been the director of Nordic Culture Point in Helsinki since February 2016. Nordic Culture Point is an institution under the Nordic Council of Ministers who’s main task is running grant programs promoting cultural cooperation with the Nordics and the Nordics and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Before moving to Helsinki Kellgren used to work as Head of Cultural Affairs in the County of Västerbotten, Sweden as well as at the ‘Västerbottens museum’ in Umeå.

Steven Loft (CA)

Panel member

Steven Loft is a Mohawk of the Six Nations with Jewish heritage. He is currently the Director of the Creating Knowing and Sharing: The Arts and Cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples program with the Canada Council for the Arts. A curator, scholar, writer and media artist, in 2010 he was named Trudeau National Visiting Fellow at Ryerson University in Toronto. Loft has also held positions as Curator-In-Residence, Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Director/Curator of the Urban Shaman Gallery (Winnipeg); Aboriginal Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Producer and Artistic Director of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (Hamilton). He has curated group and solo exhibitions across Canada and internationally; written extensively for magazines, catalogues and arts publications and lectured widely in Canada and internationally. Loft co-edited the books Transference, Technology, Tradition: Aboriginal Media and New Media Art (Banff Centre Press, 2005) and Coded Territories: Indigenous Pathways in New Media (University of Calgary Press, 2014).

Esa Rantanen (FI)

Panel member

Esa Rantanen is Head of Arts Support in the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), a state agency including national and regional arts councils and boards. Annually, Taike allocates 39 million euros as grants and subsidies for professional artists and communities in the field of art. Rantanen has a 30 year career in Finnish arts administration in various positions; as Researcher, Senior Advisor, Head of Development and Secretary General for the Central Arts Council. He has also participated in the Nordic cultural co-operation under the Nordic Council of Ministers as a member of steering group for Nordic children’s culture and as a board member of the Nordic houses and institutes. For the moment Rantanen is a board member of the Nordic Culture Fund.

Benny Marcel (DE)

Reflection speech

Benny Marcel is the director of The Nordic Culture Fund an independent legal entity associated with the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Since 2015, when Benny Marcel started as the director of the fund, the fund has taken a more active role in developing the innovative and dynamic artistic and cultural life in the Nordic Region that is diverse, accessible and of high quality. In 2019 the Fund launched a new 4-year strategy focusing on network formation and knowledge of art and culture, including a new global focus. Benny Marcel has previously worked as Deputy Director General and Head of Department - Arts and Culture at the Swedish Arts Council 2002 - 2015 and as Executive Director for The Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Örebro Concert Hall, Örebro Cultural School and Art Gallery 1999 - 2002. Before this Benny Marcel has had several assignments for international organizations in the human rights field. He has been stationed for example in Beirut, Lebanon, and has worked as the European Director for Save the Children. He has been editor and co-writer on several books and articles. Benny Marcel is a popular and much requested lecturer and moderator.Transforming Arctic - Collaborative artistic responses to environmental, technological and political and socio economical sifts across arctic. Networked and economical focus.

Maria Paldanius (FI)

Moderator

Maria Paldanius is a freelance-journalist and writer based in Rovaniemi. She works for a number of media houses both, nationally and internationally. She is specialized in arts, culture and design as well as traveling and the Arctic cultures. On top of writing and photography, she does Finnish-English-Finnish -translations and hosts different events. She has also been awarded multiple times as a writer of fiction and poetry and her texts have been published in various anthologies. Her first book, combining poetry and photography came out in March 2019. Having lived in five and traveled over 40 countries as a tourist and journalist, Paldanius is familiar with different countries and cultures and loves working with people from diverse backgrounds.

Performing Artits

Hilda Länsman (FI) & Tuomas Norvio (FI)

Joik artist Hildá Länsman from Utsjoki and musician & Helsinki-based sound designer Tuomas Norvio were asked to perform together in a festival club during contemporary theatre festival Baltic Circle 2017 in Helsinki. As it immediately clicked between the artists they decided to continue searching for their common ground. Based on improvisational soundscapes and interspaces formed by echoes and rhythms, Hilda’s ethereally buzzing, growling and pealing voice meets Norvio’s thick and sampled electronic beats.

Amund Sjølie Sveen (NO)

Amund Sjølie Sveen is born in Vadsø, in the far north eastern corner of Norway. Has a master in solo percussion from Göteborg College of Music, Sweden. Is working with a wide range of expressions and medias which common ground mainly is the use of sound, and the investigation of current political issues in the globalized world of free market economy. The last five years he has dedicated most of his time to a mobile peoples assembly, discussing issues of money, power and identity all over the North. He is also affiliated with the Arctic University of Tromsø as an artistic researcher.