The Sustainability Portrait Project – Art, location, and social responsibility for sustainable development in the Arctic

The Sustainability Portrait Project has been carried out successfully. A number of workshops, gatherings, exhibitions and presentation is confrencesses and publication has been conducted. Results include presentions of the pedagogical and artistic experiments in an exhibition produced in collaboration with the project “Community art-based sustainability in the Arctic”.

The results and learning of the the Sustainability Portrait project have been gathered to the book “Creating Arctic Sustainability Potraits”.The book is the culmination collaborative efforts between the Arctic University’s Arctic Sustainable Art and Design network and the Children in the Arctic thematic network.

Thhe Sustainability Portraits project focussed on engaging children and young people in the sustainable development of the Arctic through art and aesthetic processes. The goal was to foster dialogue, participation and research-based knowledge on how art and education can pave the way for a sustainable future in the North.

During workshops, partners from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Greenland came together to use art as a medium to address the shared responsibility of ensuring sustainability in the Arctic. This involved stewardship of the planet, people, prosperity and partnerships. Each workshop culminated in a community event and exhibition, showcasing the participants’ works locally and at universities, as well as in joint exhibitions in Umeå, Karasjok, Bodø and Rovaniemi.

Together with young participants from partnership locations, we embarked on a mission to use art and aesthetic expressions to create environmental, social and cultural self-portraits. These sustainability portraits focussed on expressing the ‘environmental me/us’, the ‘cultural me/us’, the ‘social me/us’ and the ‘livelihood me/us’. The central question was this: who are we in this world, and how can we contribute to shaping the present and future of the Arctic? – tell Timo Jokela, Peter Berliner and Annamari Manninen, editors of the book “Creating Arctic Sustainability Potraits”.“Creating Arctic Sustainability Potraits”.

The key focus on community art workshops has been on connectedness—how young people position themselves within the larger picture and how they can impact their livelihoods and their social, cultural and environmental contexts. The artistic experessios opened doors for participants to engage in expressions that were visual, engaging, playful and full of visions of a sustainable future.

The Sustainability Portrait Project – Art, location, and social responsibility for sustainable development in the Arctic was funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Nordic Arctic Co-operation Programme, represented by the Nordic Institute in Greenland.