Transactions and impulsions

Timo Haanpää is lecturer of Audiovisual Media Culture degree programme in the Faculty of Art and design, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi. Haanpää is filmmaker who works in different fields of film productions. Haanpää has focused especially to documentary film making but is interested to follow also a wide range of media art. Haanpää is also worked in some community art based projects.

Mirja Hiltunen (DA, MEd ) is professor of Art Education in the Faculty of Art and design, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, adjunct professor in University of Oulu on Community-based art education. She devised a performative art strategy as part of her work in art teacher education and has been leading community-based art education projects in Lapland for twenty years. Site-specificity, performativity, social engaged art and art education constitute her key research interests. She presented numerous international research papers and published widely in art education journals, books and art exhibitions. She is, with professors Timo Jokela, and Glen Coutts, the leader of Northern Art, Community and Environment Research group (NACER). (https://nacerteam.weebly.com/), the founding member of the Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design Network (ASAD) (https://www.asadnetwork.org/) and a member of the Artists Association of Lapland.

Migál Elle Iŋggá Máret Susánná or Marit Susanna Eira is from Guovdageaidnu. She works as a teacher at the Sámi High School and Reindeer Husbandry School. She is currently a student at Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University of Applied Sciences and is taking a bachelor degree in duodji and design. In the bachelor program, she took a course called Duodji and digital narratives, which is part of an Interreg project called AIDA (Arctic Indigenous Design Archives). In the course, she made a piece that she has named “Lihkkobaste” (eng. The spoon of luck). The spoon is made of birch and has a symbolic form. On the top of the spoon is a flower symbol with six leaves that brings luck. Further down on the spoon there are squares that forms four S-letters. These letters symbolizes their family name “Susanna”, which has followed the family for generations. The triangles on the spoon symbolizes love and shows the love between mother and child. The spoon is also decorated with silver rings (sami: šiella) that is used as a protection against ulda (mythical underground people).

Tatiana Batova is working in the Murmansk Arctic State University. She has been designer in the advertising Department of a commercial trade-holding. 2010-2015 and te curator of the creative space and art-gallery "Svetoten", Murmansk. In 2012-2015 she worked as lecturer at the branch of St. Petersburg industrial and economic College. She has expertise in Northern design, Arctic art and design, new pedagogical technologies, calligraphy and lettering, self-development, search for ways of self-realization, ethno-culture, environmental design, urbanism, lend-art, fashion design.

Monica Blind-Påve is from a village called Badje Sohppar on the Swedish side of the border in Sápmi. She grew up in a reindeer herding family in an area called Sárevuopmi, where duodji has been a natural part of the living. She tells being truly grateful for all the knowledge she has learned from he parents, Ánte Juhána Ánne Márjá and Niillasa Lásse. She have continued to practice the traditional duodji and also transforming the duodji into something new with traditional materials. She has various educations in duodji, and worked with materials such as tree and antler materials, silver and fur, hide and other fabrics. The pieces in this exhibition are the works she have done during her education in Sámi allaskuvla (Guovdageaidnu), where seh took a class called Duodji and digital narratives, that is a part of an Interreg project called AIDA (Arctic Indigenous Design Archives).

Mette Gårdvik is Associate Professor in Arts and Handicraft at faculty of Education and Arts Nord University, Campus Nesna, Norway. The outdoor classroom and conservation of handicraft skills (Green woodwork and Textile) is part of her main interest areas. She has participated in several international exhibitions, presented a numerous research papers and has a wide range of scientific publications. She is member of the interdisciplinary research group “Education for Sustainable Development and Place Based Learning”, working with interdisciplinary approaches to artistic practices and Eco art.  The research group hosted the seventh Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design symposium (ASAD) in November 2018, at Nord University Nesna.

Torunn P. Dagsland is Associate Professor, (fil.dr.), at the University of Stavanger, Faculty of Arts and Education, Norway.  In her own creative arts she works with weaving, embroidery, fabric printing, photo and mixed media (plastics, paper, metal, acrylic paint, patina and textile). She works with pictures, sculpture and various interior fabrics. In her Artist’s Statement she describes how the tapestry can be put into a decorative textile handcraft tradition as well as into a narrative contemporary context. Using the materials, techniques, lines, ancient Sami symbols and colours, the tapestry tells stories.

Timo Jokela is Professor of Art Education and former Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design (2009-2017), University of Lapland. Currently he is leader of the Thematic Network on Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design, University of Arctic. He also worked as Visiting Professor of Art Education and Environmental Art at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland (2006-2011). Jokela works actively as an environmental artist and community artist, often using natural materials, such as snow, ice and wood, and the local cultural heritage of the North and the Arctic as a starting point for his works. He has realized several exhibitions, environmental art and community art projects in Finland and abroad. Jokela has been responsible for several international and regional art-based action research development projects with the focus on relationship between northern cultures, art and nature Jokela has published several articles and books including the latest ones. Latest edited books: Jokela. T. and Coutts. G. (2018) Relate North.  Art and Design for Education and Sustainability, Sinner. A., Irwin, R. and Jokela, T. (2018) Visually provoking. Dissertation in Art Education both published by Lapland University Press.

Tanja Koistinen is an artist from Rovaniemi currently finishing Master studies in the Arctic art and design programme in the University of Lapland. Her style of working turns everyday life into art, using variable methods of visual arts and environment art. With multi-ethnic ancestry of Sami and Finnish, Tanja describes herself as a person who bonders between indigenous and non-indigenous cultures. In her work she aims to understand and seek deeply and self-reflectively, valuing the Arctic, the home, and the nature, the soul.

Jouni S. Laiti comes from Utsjoki, Finland. At present, he lives in Inari. Most of his adult life, he has worked in reindeer herding and been engaged in other nature-based activities such as fishing and berry-picking. He began studying handicrafts for more than twenty years ago and has been working as a crafts teacher at the Sámi Education Institute in Inari ever since. At present, he is almost done with his master’s studies in duodji at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences. Laiti displays both traditional Sámi handicrafts and modern arts and crafts, all made from reindeer horn and burls that we find in birches. He has learned that people must behave themselves in the woods. We can make use of the forest and Nature’s offerings, but with respect. Therefore, he finds the harsh ways of using nature unpleasant. He follows public discussion and, through some of his crafts, he wants to take a stand in topical social issues.

Richard Lerman has created interdisciplinary art since the 1960’s with performances, installations & screenings in N/S America, Asia, Europe, Australia & New Zealand. Using his self-built electronics, he has gathered audio from the natural world along and from fences on the US/Mexico Border; barbed wire at Auschwitz; rice stalks in Japan, ants/wasps nests in the Sonoran Desert; spider webs & many others. Performance work includes Travelon Gamelon (1979) for amplified bicycles. His streaming site, SonicJourneys: A Sound Art Channel, is now online and those with Apple or Roku TV may add this channel.  He has offered work at the Museum of Modern Art, the Kiasma, the UC-Berkeley Pacific Film Archives, & many others.  Arctic Transitions: in the Age of Carbon being shown here, uses sound from carbon fiber rods, melting ice, and plants gathered near the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station and other Arctic locations. He is a Professor of Digital/Media Arts at Ariz State University.

Anelia Lyantsevich, member of the Union of Designers of Russia, the senior lecturer, Department оf Design, Institute of Arts and Culture, Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University.

Behind the Eight Ball Enterprises is a non-profit design consortium located in the Anchorage, Alaska.  The proprietors and designers are J. E. Ilgen, past instructor University of Alaska Anchorage and C. E. Licka, Professor Emeritus, Art History, University of Alaska Anchorage. 

Anna Petrova-Kerehit - artist of decorative art, candidate of art history, member of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation. She graduated from the Yakut Art School, East-Siberian State Academy of Culture and Arts, graduate school in the specialty "Theory and History of Art". Participant of more than 40 Russian and international exhibitions since 1999. Anna Petrova-Kerehit works in the field of decorative art and installations, with traditional materials such as leather, textiles. Her work is drawn to the language of traditional ethnonational and modern symbolism, to the problem of understanding the past in the present. The area of scientific interests of Anna Karehit is connected with the study of contemporary art, the problems of the traditional in contemporary artistic and design activities - design. He is the author of scientific works, articles in the field of modern art and design, curator of art and research projects.

Olga Rakhleeva is an associate professor, a member of the Union of Artists of Russia, the International Association of Designers, Professor, Department of Design and Decorative Arts, Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts, with her name associated with the birth and development of artistic textiles in Yakutia an appeal to the archaic sources of the fine art of Sakha. Since the 1990s, the author has been working in various types and techniques of textiles: embroidery, weaving, painting, batik, often combining complex techniques, creating a peculiar world of images. He is one of the founders of the modern school of graphic design of the republic. Students O.A. Rakhleeva - diploma students of international, All-Russian and republican competitions in the field of graphic and communicative design. The works of the author are marked by awards of international competitions and exhibitions, are in collections of international and Russian museums and private collections.

Johanna Ruotsalainen is senior lecturer in Oulu UAS, composer and visual artist. Ruotsalainen has participated in many internationally established festivals as invited artist and has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed contemporary performers such as Mise-En Ensemble, ToolBox Percussion, Open Circuit and David & Oliver Herbert. Ruotsalainen has special interest in place and locality: Her works illustrate the complex phenomenon of place with aim to capture the atmosphere and emotional essence of the experience.

Simi Susanna Ruotsalainen (MA) is media-artist and photographer from Rovaniemi, Finland. Their main medium is video art, especially combining photography with drawn animation. Written or spoken words and several simultanious interpretations interest them as the source of audiovisual expression. Ruotsalainen's art is often related in Northern and Arctic areas, environmental issues and feminism. Ruotsalainen is currently finishing their second Master's degree in University of Lapland.

Karin Stoll is Associate Professor in Natural Science at faculty of Education and Arts Nord University, Campus Nesna, Norway. She is a member of the interdisciplinary research group “Education for Sustainable Development and Place Based Learning” where she is working with Eco-Art to communicate pupils and students statements about the environmental challenges in the Arctic to the society. As a former Museum Pedagogy at the Museum for Natural History in Regensburg, Germany she has a wide range of experiences presenting and exhibiting natural science in an esthetical setting.

Johan Ándde Ánne Rávnná Bireha Biijja Rávdná, Rauna Vieltojärvi, is an artist living currenty in Inari. Her ancestors are from Enontekiö and Karasjok, but last few years she has lived in Inari. She is studying Bachelor of Duodji and Design at Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino.

Wenche Sørmo is Professor, (dr. scient.), at Nord University, The Faculty of Education and Arts, Norway. She is the head of the interdisciplinary research group “Education for Sustainable Development and Place Based Learning” where natural science and arts and crafts is combined to develop creative and explorative ways of teaching. Several works of Eco-Art has been created to communicate pupils and students statements about the environmental challenges in the Arctic to the society.

Irina Zemtsova, professor, folk master of the Russian Artists Union, Department of Folk Arts and Crafts, Institute of Arts and Culture, Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University.