The fourth international and interdisciplinary art methods school Living in the Landscape (LiLa) took place in between March and October 2023. This series of schools is organized by the University of Arctic’s thematic network Arctic Sustainable Art and Design (ASAD). This year (2023) we have undertaken another hybrid delivery with in situ site working in Umeå and the High Coast area of Sweden.

The participating MA and PhD students and scholars this year came from several ASAD partner institutions: Umeå University (Sweden), the University of Lapland (Finland), Nord University (Norway), the University of the West of Scotland (Scotland), the University of the Highlands and Islands (Scotland), Yukon School of Art (Canada), and University of Alaska, Anchorage (Canada). The participants came from the disciplines of art education, general teacher education, fine arts, creative practice, and clothing design.

Launching of the 2023 Lila school took place online in March 2023. Via series of online seminars and group work, community-enhancing activities were conducted steadily over a series of weeks so that participants would get to know each other even before the fieldwork week later in May 2023. Small group discussions, virtual teatimes and tasks facilitated by the country teams brought participants together to undertake deepening awareness of landscape as taskscape as well as participants each executing their planning for delivering to both the Lila 2023 exhibition (at Relate North: Umeå) and the publication as appropriate.