North by North East: A free Passage from Barents to Bering Sea

North by North East: A free Passage from Barents to Bering Sea

Climate change is causing tremendous consequences which will fundamentally reshape our understanding of the North. Despite the geopolitical upheavals, global temperatures continue to rise, polar ice caps are melting creating ice free shipping passages above Russia. In a few decades from now, ordinary merchant ships are supposed to be able to take a shortcut from Barents to the Bering Sea, across the Arctic. The weather too is becoming wilder and wetter, vegetation is transforming, changing food production and consumption patterns. In the wake of the climate crisis, how will society and culture change?

By engaging the students in a thought experiment to anticipate different scenarios of a future of the North, the theme of this EiT village aims at initiating creative conversations and collaborations between art, science, technology, culture, business, and policymaking. Through art and design research methods, the students will develop multimedia projects (across video, sound, performance, print, text) addressing the pressing consequences of climate change in the North.  

Relevant competency

The village, hosted by Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts (AD Faculty), is open to students from all academic disciplines. It relies on a variety of different expertise and backgrounds to realize its goal, to push cross-disciplinary teamwork beyond its limits in terms of time and space. Students will be encouraged to expand the scope of their disciplines, draw from technical and tactical knowledge, while also being introduced to art and design research methods. Open mindedness, an interest to become more familiar with epistemologies of non-linear systems, and a certain affinity for operating within regimes of uncertainty, may be helpful but are not required. 

About the village

Fast forward 50 years into the future and from that future perspective look back at today to ask, “Whatever could have happened for things to have come to this?” 

Engaging with this thought experiment, the village will be a collaborative platform to investigate, discuss, perform, simulate, and enact possible futures set in motion by climate change in the North of Norway. The title of the village, “North by Northeast: A free passage from Barents to Bering Sea” embeds one such story of the inter-connected socio-political consequences of climate change: once a major ice-free shipping lane opens above Russia, China comes closer to Norway. Could this turn Tromsø into a new Singapore or Kirkenes into Chinatown?  

The students will research specific consequences of climate change in the north of Norway and analyse it’s socio-political and cultural effects. In an adventurous travel in time, they will explore different versions of a future of the North, as well as its entanglements with the rest of the world: politically, economically, culturally, aesthetically, on collective and individual levels. This time travel will take place by extrapolating scientific knowledge, simulating possible scenarios, and imagining new forms of creating value. It is a practical exercise in radically questioning common assumptions while climate change renders certainties impossible and challenges the borders of conventional forms of knowledge production. By developing manifold relations between what is yet unknowable and yet imperceptible, the village sets out to investigate and speculate about new opportunities for interventions and change.  

The course will develop a transdisciplinary lecture series that will offer the students critical insight into the challenges of the North, which will help shape and define their projects. We will also partner with international artists, designers, musicians and curators who will mentor the student groups and introduce them to art & design research methods and new skills such as video and sound editing, graphic and interaction design, telematic audio-visual storytelling, interactive mapping, live action role-playing games, etc. In their production and research process, the students will be encouraged to reach out to and engage directly with agencies and stakeholders on both, local and global levels such as, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, indigenous communities, networks of municipalities, research collaborations, not to mention tourists, explorers, adventurers and their guides. In the end, each group will produce an art project or product that will be presented to a panel of experts, working and researching (in) the North, creating opportunities to showcase and publish the students’ work in relevant contexts. 

Assessment

In this village, the project report and the compulsory presentation of the project is replaced by an oral exam that counts for 50% of the grade. The oral exam is assessed according to the same criteria as the project report.

Facts

  • Course code: AAR4918
    Village title: North by North East: A free Passage from Barents to Bering Sea
  • Type: Intensive
    Language: English
  • Village supervisors: Prerna Bishnoi, PhD candidate 
  • Contact information: Prerna Bishnoi
  • Semester: Spring 2023
  • Location: Trondheim
  • Host faculty: AD

How do I register for EiT?

Important information about EiT

Important information about EiT:

  • The focus on teamwork skills and group processes is the unique feature of Experts in Teamwork (EiT)
  • EiTs teaching methods depend on the contribution and presence of every participant throughout the semester. For this reason, attendance is compulsory on every village day.
  • In contrast to many courses, the first few days are especially important in EiT. During this period, get to know each other and discuss what each individual can contribute. You will also draw up the compulsory cooperation agreement and start preparing a shared research question.
  • For additional information about Experts in Teamwork, see page for students