Lea O’Loughlin is Co-Director of Acme Studios in London, UK, and President of the Board of Res Artis, the international professional body for artist residencies. Acme supports the development and production of art by reducing the practical challenges that artists face, increasing their ability to take creative risks. By providing affordable studio and living space, residences and awards, opportunities and other support, Acme has supported over 7,000 artists at all stages of their careers since 1972. Res Artis supports over 750 member organisations in more than 80 countries. Based in Amsterdam with two satellite offices in Melbourne and Tehran Res Artis’ global reach promotes artist residencies as a vital part component of the contemporary arts and culture landscape, stimulating the creative development and mobility of artists, and furthering intercultural understanding.

Varvara Feklistova is coordinator of the Karelian Art Residency, chief administrator of the Vyhod Media Center based in Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia,Russia. Running international exchange residency and exhibition projects. Concentrate on developing new project « Karelian art-residency network and Art tourism» supported by ENI Karelia CBC programme. The project is aimed to improve the system of production of contemporary culture services and products in cross-border region through the resources of art-residency network and cross-sectoral approach.

This session is dedicated to art from the Arctic region: its specifics, challenges, and trajectories. Five international curators working within the Northern perspective will share their experience and visions towards the past, present, and future of the Arctic art. What defines Arctic art today? How do the artists balance between local and global? What is the role of Arctic art in the international context? By sketching a map of crucial questions faced by the current Arctic art scene, the session opens up a stage for a discussion and invites the audience to participate.

Jaimie Isaac is a Winnipeg-based curator and interdisciplinary artist, member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Treaty 1 territory of Anishinaabe and British heritage. Isaac holds a degree in Art History and an Arts and Cultural Management Certificate from the University of Winnipeg and a Masters of Arts from the University of British Columbia, with research focus on Indigenous Curatorial Praxis, and methodologies in decolonizing and Indigenizing. Recent exhibitions include Woven Together at the Kelowna Art Gallery, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery; organic, Insurgence Resurgence (co curated with Julie Nagam) and Vernon Ah Kee: cantchant, Boarder X, We Are On Treaty Land, and Quiyuktchigaewin; Making Good. Isaac co-founded of The Ephemerals Collective (with Niki Little and Jenny Western), which was long-listed for the 2017 and 2019 Sobey Art Award. Jaimie collaborated on the artistic team with KC Adams and Val Vint with on a public sculpture at the Forks called Nimama at South Point path; Niizhoziibean and collaborated on a public art project, Cyclical Motion: Indigenous Art & Placemaking curated by Jenny Western. She collaborated on the official denial (trade value in progress) a national project with Leah Decter .

Ingrid Valan holds an MA in Art History with contemporary art as specialized field, from the University in Oslo and Goldsmiths, University College of London. After graduating in 2013, Ingrid has worked as an art educator at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the Vigeland Museum and Høstutstillingen in Oslo. Ingrid has written and published texts about contemporary art, among others for the Norwegian art magazine Kunstforum, and worked at several of the popup exhibitions of the Oslo based art dealer and consultant company, ArtWalk. Since June 2014, Ingrid has been part of the Pikene på Broen´s team in Kirkenes, working as a curator. Pikene på Broen is an organisation with idealist roots that has developed to be one of the most important cultural actors in the Barents Region; developing projects such as the multilateral Interreg Kolarctic project 'Migration' in 2002, since 2004 the annual art and culture festival 'Barents Spektakel' and the international residency programme 'BAR International' and three 'Barents Triennale' (EU cultural projects). In 2017, Pikene på Broen established the project, workshop and dialogue space 'Terminal B' in the centre of Kirkenes.

Kristina Dryagina is a curator, graduated from the University of Culture and Arts in St. Petersburg, she has a MA in cultural management. For two years from 2015 to 2017, Kristina was the director of the exhibition hall in Arkhangelsk. In 2016, she joined the Arctic Art Institute – an international project bureau in the Russian North, in the Euro-Arctic region of Russia, close to Scandinavia. Since 2016, Kristina is a co-curator of the Arctic Art Forum. For two years, Kristina has been working with studies of independent art organizations and initiatives in the field of contemporary art. In 2018, Kristina created a project-laboratory of movement of borders for local artists, the result of which was the performance «Living Currents». Kristina's professional interest is in the field of performance, sustainability and the study of human relations in the Arctic region.