We got a grant, 20 000 euros, from the Nordic Culture Fund for the project “The ‘De-arcticfication’ in Nordic Arts”. The project aims at invigorating regional identity, promoting cultural pride and fostering cultural resilience in the Nordic Arctic region. We share perspectives on the Nordic Arctic as a place to live, work and raise our children, culturally able and robust. The project includes several elements such as Nordic Co-Curatorial practice, the production of a concept exhibition involving a dialogue between Nordic artists and a selection of artists from the Artists’ Association of Lapland, the socially and environmentally engaged art event ‘Odd Garden’ (Kumma Puutarha) in Rovaniemi in 2021.
‘Wiping the Ice-Cream Off Your Face’ -exhibition is curated by Misha del Val (Fl) and Andreas Hoffmann (NO/Greenland – Arctic Culture Lab). It presents featuring Nordic artists from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and Aland, plus northern Russia, and a selection of artists from the Artists Association of Lapland. The ‘Odd Garden’ (Kumma puutarha), a week-long art symposium bringing environmental art to the heart of the city of Rovaniemi (Finland), is produced in collaboration with the city of Rovaniemi and curated by Tuomas Korkalo.
The main themes running through both of these larger events -and the other subprojects are promoting a debate on the significance of contemporary Arctic culture and its place within Nordic culture, reconsider notions about the North outside the mainstream, conventional way of thinking, and allow the North to find and speak its own voice, in a process we are calling ‘De-arctification’.
