WHO ARE WE?

artArctica is a group of artists with a passion for the Arctic. Our vision is to create an open, multiarts events and present diverse perspectives on the Arctic nature and people: what does the Arctic mean to the people living in it? What can the Arctic also be, other than what we think it already is?

Our artArctica festival 2017 was a great success, with over 30 artists performing and exhibiting, discussions bringing together scientists, activists, and artists, and a very special, first ever artArctica residency, which took place in Helsinki 9-11.2.2017. The residency artists showcased their works in progress in events, exhibitions, and discussions during the festival.

In February 2016 we organised our first artArctica festival, which was a successful three-day international and multiarts festival. We had the pleasure of hosting over 40 artists from 8 different Arctic countries, and, inspired by the enthusiasm for the festival, in October 2016 we published poem.a: an anthology celebrating the Arctic which included poetry, prose, drawings, and comics, and involved a total of 29 artists from 11 countries and content in five languages.

The time following artArctica’s 2017 festival has seen changes in the lives of artArctica’s core organizing team. In order to respect the new directions in our lives, we are taking a pause from producing festivals, and events.  For this reason, there has not been any recent news about the 2019 Festival. We do not know what artArctica’s pause will lead to.  We may host small events in Helsinki or elsewhere in the coming years. Perhaps larger projects will emerge in a new form later on, or perhaps not. In any case, we are deeply grateful for everything that has been, and excited for what may lie in the future!

We are working on producing a music album featuring tracks recorded by our 2017 festival’s musicians and poets.

This is, of course, the easy story. If you press us further, we will say we are a community of creatives aiming to inspire understanding across cultures and raise awareness about the environment through our passion for the Arctic. We do this through the arts, discussions, research, and story-telling. We blog, organize wilderness expeditions, workshops and performances – we thrive on adventure, artistic exchange, and dialogue.

We are a small team of artists passionate about the Arctic. You will find more about who we are, our activities, articles written by our inspired team of contributors, and our contact and social media links.  We may not write you back quickly, but we appreciate your efforts to get in touch!