May 29 – June 3, 2024 AIVAN artists participated at the Arctic Congress, Bodo, Norway hosted by the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA). Arctic StoryWorlds: Frozen Matters exhibition was a collaborative exhibition project that brought together diverse knowledge systems including scholarly expertise, artistic creativity, and Indigenous worldviews. Through co-production and co-creation of knowledge approaches, Indigenous knowledge and research findings were integrated into multimedia displays. The practice of Indigenous storytelling was highlighted through Indigenous art forms by the artists from Kamchatka, Yamal, Murmansk, Alaska, Yakutia, and Mongolia.
Ice, snow, and permafrost are integral to Arctic human-landscape connections, providing shelter, water, and infrastructure, while also shaping identities, informing and inspiring Arctic residents. Indigenous Peoples’ livelihoods deeply intertwine with frozen landscapes. They have developed diverse ways of interacting with and keeping knowledge about them, including through language, art, and ways of being. Deterioration of Arctic frozen environments driven by climate change impacts not only Indigenous communities but has the potential of affecting the whole of humanity. Complexity of problems the Arctic is facing today requires a search for new ways of discussing, understanding, and envisioning our relationship with land and water for now and for the future.
Indigenous Art Forms as Reflections on Frozen Commons section of the exhibition was specifically focused on the living experiences of Arctic Indigenous artists. Indigenous art form is meant to bring Indigenous voices forward to speak about socio-environmental challenges, community well-being, justice and equality, success and failure, and offer lessons, advice, and guidance. Indigenous art forms provide a glimpse into the knowledge base and experiences of Arctic communities building a bridge of understanding across diverse knowledge systems. Stories skillfully crafted by Indigenous women seamlessly come together to celebrate the vibrant Arctic life and at the same time grieve the lost generations of knowledge holders, interrupted relations, and the rapidly melting ecosystem. In this section, we draw attention to how Indigenous creative storytelling depicts delicate understanding of plentiful states of Arctic waters including diverse qualities of snow, variable conditions of ice, and rapidly changing permafrost grounds. These stories were diligently gathered by generations of Indigenous hunters, reindeer herders, fishermen, berry and herb pickers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, great-grandparents… Depicting the essence of what it means to be a respectful and responsible citizen of the Arctic ecosystem, these artworks celebrate the beautiful Arctic lands and waters that are viewed by Indigenous Peoples not as wilderness and a hostile environment, but as a deeply loved home.
This exhibition was supported through the “Frozen Commons: Change, Resilience, and Sustainability in the Arctic” and “Sharing Environmental Knowledge Among Indigenous Peoples via Crafty Storytelling” projects and co-curated by Vera Kuklina (ArtSLInK), Olga Zaslavskaya (ArtSLInK), Tatiana Degai (AIVAN).
Read more about the exhibition in the Northern Notes, Issue 61, Autumn 2024 https://iassa.org/images/NorthernNotes/NN_61_Leaving_Bod_20.pdf
Indigenous Art Forms as Reflections on Frozen Commons online exhibition link forthcoming
Link to the online catalog of the Arctic StoryWorlds: Frozen Matters: https://frozen-matters.com/