Architecture and Design are too often viewed through the narrow lens of aesthetics. And yet, architecture, urban design and the resulting built environment have significant impacts on human wellbeing. Therefore the only responsible

approach to Architecture and Design must be a holistic one. Given their specific history and environment, this is perhaps of even more significance in Arctic communities.

EVOQ Architecture has offices in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Iqaluit. The Canadian firm has been working with Inuit and First Nations communities for close to 35 years. These communities are spread all across Canada; Nunavik, Nunavut, Nunatsiavut, Eeyou Istchee, Nitassinan, Mi’kma’ki, Kahnawà:ke and Treaty 8 (BC).

Through this sustained relationship and thanks to the communities’ sharing and mentoring, EVOQ has developed a unique understanding of the Inuit and First Nations’ world view. This, coupled with the firm’s ability to truly listen and set the stage for a creative vision quest dialogue, explains why EVOQ is renowned for the way it successfully translates and expresses various indigenous cultures into their built environment. Ours is a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. To the knowledge and ingenuity of our indigenous partners, we bring our know-how to help embody the change each community chooses to bring forward. The firm’s goal is to contribute to the improvement of the wellness and economic development of Inuit and First Nations communities.

Alain Fournier Architect (B. Arch U McGill 1975) is a founding member of EVOQ Architecture. He has worked for over thirty five years (35) in the Canadian Arctic’s Inuit Nunangat territory (Nunavik, Nunavut and Nunatsiavut).  During this time, in collaboration with the Inuit, he has designed more than three hundred (300) buildings of all types and sizes. He has also worked with numerous First Nations of Canada, namely the Cree, the Mi'gmaq, the Maliseet, the Innu, the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawks) and the Treaty 8 Tribal Association in British Colombia.  Mr. Fournier regularly gives lectures, conferences, participate in symposiums, summits, round tables and discussion panels in Quebec, Canada and abroad on project management, design and construction of architectural projects with the Inuit and First Nations. He also teaches and lectures on the subject in schools of architecture. He was part of the delegation that represented Canada at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. The Canadian pavilion featured various approaches to Architecture the Canadian Arctic environment.  Mr. Fournier's mission is to actively contribute to the promotion and development of indigenous nations’ cultures in the built environment. As a result of this long term commitment, Alain Fournier has become a partner respected by the Inuit and First Nations and an active player in the dialog between Nations. He regularly gives lectures in Canada and abroad on the subject of how to actively contribute to the promotion and development of Canada’s rich Indigenous cultures through architecture and integrated art expressing their world vision.

Tatiana Zhigaltsova is a researcher, and a photographer. She has a PhD thesis in Philosophy (2012) and worked at the Northern Arctic Federal University. At present, she is a Senior Research Officer at the N. Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research, Russian Academy of Sciences. Her interests include history and routine life of small settlements in the Arctic, emotional geography and mapping of environment. Together with the video-artist Sergey Zhigaltsov, she co-authored an art project “Emotional Geography of the City” (2018). Her projects at the junction of art and science are based on her 2014-2019 field visits to the cities and rural communities of the Russian North and aim to improve emotional ecology and emotional bonds between people and their places of residence.

Ivan Tarasov is a sociologist. In 2015, he graduated from Nord University (Bodo, Norway) with his second degree as a Bachelor in circumpolar studies. In 2018, he completed his postgraduate studies at training program “Social institutes, social phenomenon and processes” on the topic “Structures and typologies of the Arctic circumpolar cities. His research interests include Sociology of cities, Urban Studies, Arctic Studies and Civil society in Russia. Ivan is an organizer and initiator of some workshops and round table conferences on contemporary processes in Arctic cities, such as Free seminars of urban studies. Participant of conferences and scientific schools, including Arctic Frontiers 2018, BASEES 2019, Barents Summer School 2016. He has taken part in several applied research projects. The title of his current research is «Urban environment as a non-single object: features of the assembly» supported by Oxford Russia Fund. 

Tarja Porsanger comes from Utsjoki, 450 kilometers north of here. Her father was a reindeer herder and my mother a craftswoman. She have worked all my life within the Sámi culture; for various cultural projects, and 10 years as director of the Cultural Department at the Sámi Council . Now she works as a coordinator for the Sámi Parliament in the Indigenous Film Center, and also in the Year of Indigenous Languages -project. She have a passion for visual arts, and she has studied photography at the University of Lapland. She has had a photo exhibition on the perception of beauty through the eyes of the citysámi. The subject of the exhibition came from the co-operation of the Skábmagovat- and Imagine Native -film festivals.

Sardana Savvina (indigenous/Sakha). Savvina is born in the village Verkhnevilyusk in Western Yakutia, The Republic Sakha, Russia. She is producer, promoter of Sakha cinema and researcher in film studies. Savina is the founder and leader of the "Sakha Cinema Club" – Yakutia's Independent Filmmakers' Community. Savvina has promoted and distributed many indigenous Sakha films at different international film festivals. For 13 years she worked at the Arctic State Institute of Culture & Arts as a lecturer and the head of International Office. She has worked as programmer of four editions of Yakutsk International Film Festival (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). She is thea dvisor of NATIVe Section of the Berlinale IFF and coordinator of Special Program in Focus - "Sakha Cinema: World of Magical Nature and Myths" (Busan IFF, 2017, Korea). Currently she works as a producer at National Company “Sakhafilm” and at the International Department at ‘Olonkho’ Ethnic Theater.

Jerri Thrasher is an Inuvialuit Film Writer/Director, Television Producer and owner of JT Productions in Inuvik, Northwest Territories.  In 2013, Jerri joined the Inuvialuit Communications Society, as a TV Producer eventually producing Tusaayaksat Tv, I Survived North of 60 and Inuit Away for APTN. Outside of Television, Jerri spends her time writing and directing short films set in the Arctic such as The Last Walk and her upcoming Seacrets. In October 2018, Jerri joined a Greenlandic Production team as a co-producer for the upcoming short film Updated. Today, Jerri is an advocate for Inuvialuit and Food-Security in the north and is using these experiences to write a feature length based in her home region.

This session focuses on the diverse agencies of artists, art projects and their beholders or participants with regard to the Arctic. In recent years we have witnessed a substantial widening of artistic activities in the Arctic. The impacts of climate change, extractivism, national state politics and regional interests are issues at stake here. Indigenous as well as Non-indigenous artists working in different visual media have created works of art ranging from, say, representations of peoples, settlements, and landscapes; to abstractions, objects, installations, and participatory projects. Some artists insist on controlling the production of their works in a studio or a workshop, alone or in collaboration with others. Others engage in open-ended art projects in which the role of the audience is mandatory. In what ways is the Arctic – in the sense of nature, region, or culture – put at work in recent art? What are the roles of the artists themselves? How do ideas concerning the artists’ backgrounds, traditionally referred to as identity, influence Arctic art projects, if at all? Is there a difference between ‘Arctic art’ created or activated by artists who have their background in the Arctic areas and that created by those coming from other areas? How may we talk about identity – or belonging – in circumstances regarding such as the above-mentioned global issues of climate change and extractivism?

Tuomas Korkalo  is a Finnish artist, painter and curator currently based in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland / Finland. He studied Fine Arts BA at Imatra Art School (Imatra, Finland) wherefrom he graduated in 2008. Korkalo paints, draws and creates art installations. The abstract and geometric forms that Korkalo employs on canvas are evocative of early 20th century aesthetics as seen in the Bauhaus and Russian avantgarde movement for example. Unlike the Bauhaus aesthetics, he implements water colour -like technique in his art that adds a complementary lightness to his works. In these works the geometric and colourful compositions, employed on the canvas by the artist, function by themselves, creating a comforting feeling derived from the pureness of form and symmetry. Korkalo masters both, solo and team work, and he also works widely in various international and interdisciplinary projects. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad since 2000. Tuomas Korkalo is a member of Finnish Painters´ Union and Artists´ Association of Lapland.

Birgitta Linhart is a visual artist and workshop leader working mainly outdoors with natural material. Environmental art, stone sculpting, and as a snow/ice artist . Her base is in Luleå, northern Sweden.Most of her workshops has taken place in the arctic area of Sweden and Finland. People in rural places, nature and history of the place is of great interest to her and always the theme of workshops.In her own work she seeks the integration/interaction between nature and human. Her exhibitions has lately been in large scale nature material installations in art halls and galleries. She has participated in Land art symposiums/biennial in Trans Barents symposium of art, Ii art biennial and Silvretta in Austria. Her work in stone has been mainly of public art work and can be seen in Sundsvall, Luleå, Piteå and Haparanda. Her work as and snow/ice artist and the producer of Ice Music in Swedish Lapland has been taken place in Colorado, New Mexico, Italy and Sweden.

Mari Mäkiranta is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lapland and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Jyväskylä. In 2008 she earned her doctoral degree related on autobiographical photography art. Between 2010-2014 she conducted a postdoctoral research project, exploring young people’s living environments in different European countries. Mäkiranta’s work has focused on socially engaged visual arts, feminist theories and arts-based research. She is a Principal Investigator in the Academy of Finland awarded Floating Peripheries – Making Sense of the Place sub-project (2017-2021). Mäkiranta is the member of board for international and national editorial boards. She has written several peer-reviewed articles and books and curated and exhibited art works in national and international contexts. She intertwines communal, embodied, experimental and multisensory expressions in her art practices.

We live in a hybrid relationship with nature, simultaneously in the technosphere, among technologies and interpretations, and in the biosphere, which encapsulates us in nature. The core idea of western science and art as the mediator of emotion, experience and knowledge is crumbling. It seems that decision making in our societies nowadays leans for the most part on information coming from different lobbying parties and interest groups. In cases like social, environmental and climate change especially in arctic, these tend to focus, select and shape data towards their own aims rather than relying on commonly agreed, research-based facts and the rigour of sciences. The problem this presents to locals, artists and researchers is how to shape and change reality through visual language and artistic activity and how to communicate effectively about the environment and its changes that influence socio economic sphere of our societies. The problem that this rapid change generate is need for resources to initiate these activities mentioned before outside of traditional funding models and organizations. Question is: “How motivate and argue this to decision-making levels of funders and policymakers behind funding strategies.” Panel and paper will aim to give guidelines based on panel expertise on questions on changing world. 

Antti Tenetz is regional artist for bioart in Finnish Arts Promotion Center. He strenghten a nationwide art and science and bioart network and thereby increase international co-operation and increase the artists’ working conditions. Tenetz has been writing in international publications, done residencies and research positions, acted as evaluator and developer for Finnish art & science funding bodies, and more often he is invited expert for addressing future of arts and science and technology. Working interdisciplinary in his art practise, his work often utilizes scientific methods in order to render natural and cultural phenomenons such as climatic change, environmental issues and biodiversity. Employing contemporary technologies such as drones, biotech and AI his work can border on surveillance, relationship with nature and tech, privacy, law, landscape and natural values as well as other species and the forming of our living space, respect and survival.

Tomi Knuutila (DA) is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at the University of Lapland. His courses include e.g history of media, animation, game design, scriptwriting, interaction design, physical computing and computational creativity. He has been working both nationally and internationally in the field of new media arts for over 20 years, including video art, cd-rom, internet-based works, music, new media performances and interactive installations in galleries, museums, science centres and media art exhibitions. He has collaborated as a media artist with other disciplines: dance, industrial design, architecture, engineering, and natural sciences such as biology and geology, e.g. ice research. He has been a founding member in international inter- and cross-disciplinary networks.

Hinriikka Lindqvist is a tour manager, project coordinator and producer working in the field of performing art, now as Executive Director of Ruska Ensemble, the theatre group doing performing art across the Arctic. She has been involved in several multinational theatre projects and is experienced in international coproductions. In Ruska Ensemble she strives for improving theatre’s possibilities to act ecologically and equally in cooperation with different nations. Ruska Ensemble’s mission is to share information on environment and cultural diversity in Finland, around the Arctic area and the whole world. Hinriikka Lindqvist loves theatre art and nature and feels herself proud to be able to work among them both.

Birta Gudjonsdottir (b. 1977) is a curator and artist living in Reykjavik. She is a chief curator at the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik.  In 2009-2011 she had the position as director of The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik. In 2008-09 she had the position of Artistic Director of exhibition space 101 Projects, Reykjavik.  In 2008 she worked as curator´s assistant at MuHKA; Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium.  In 2007-08 she took part in the Nordic Baltic Curatorial Platform project, initiated by FRAME, Finland.  In 2005-08 she worked as a curator at SAFN, Private Contemporary Art Collection, Reykjavik. Gudjonsdottir has independently curated over twenty exhibitions in Berlin, Boden, Copenhagen, Oslo, Melbourne, New York, St. Petersburg and most art museums and art spaces in Iceland. In 2011 she participated in the Curatorial Intensive program of ICI; Independent Curators International, New York. In 2011 she participated in The Cornwall Workshop, organised by Tate St. Ives. She has been on advisory boards of the Icelandic Art Center and The Icelandic Academy of the Arts. Since 2002 she has produced her home-gallery Dwarf Gallery, Reykjavik. She is a member of IKT, International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.

Svetlana Usenyuk-Kravchuk is a design researcher with primary interests in the Arctic design, i.e. design for adaptation to the extreme environment, with focus on co-design and user innovation practices, made visible and comprehensible through design ethnography. She has pursued these interests to date by conducting fieldwork and user innovation research in different localities of the Russian and Scandinavian North. She graduated as a PhD in 2011 from the Ural State University of Architecture and Art (USUAA), Russia, then worked as a postdoc at Aalto University, Finland (2011-2015), and at the Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences (2015-2016). Currently, she is Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial Design and a Head of the research lab on innovation and creativity at the USUAA.

Currently, Mari Suoheimo is a Ph.D. student at the University of Lapland, Finland, at the “Culture-Based Service Design” program. The Finnish Cultural academy gave her a one-year grant for the Ph.D. studies. She holds a master’s degree (2010) and bachelor’s degree (2008) in Industrial Design at the University of Lapland, and a Bachelor’s degree (2015) of Art Education from Centro Universiátio Claretiano. Suoheimo has working experience in product design, marketing, service design and branding, for example in developing of the JEFFER.SON brand in Brazil. She also owned a micro-enterprise called Design District in Brazil, 2014-2017. Suoheimo has, also been a marketing analyst at the multinational Grasp Ltda. Today Suoheimo is facilitating the service design process in the EU founded Voitto-project and at the Sitra founded mobility service design in Lapland. At the University of Lapland, she has substituted also at the Academic Service Design Research Group.