Arctic Art Newspaper

In the summer of 2020, the partners behind the network project announced an open call for contributions to the Arctic Art Newspaper project. 28 of 112 applications were selected by a larger group of representatives from the partner organizations in the autumn of 2020, and three contributions by direct invitation. The editorial team: Marion Bouvier (Tromsø), Paavo J. Heinonen (Oulu), and Anastasia Patsey (St. Petersburg) got to work and met online throughout 2021, working closely with Arkhangelsk-based designers Victor Tiapkov and Nadezhda Staritsyna.

The publication wants to promote contemporary art that reflects the diversity of artistic practices in the Arctic region in this moment in history. There is no special theme or concept the publication addresses. The curatorial concept for the publication is developed around the publication itself and distribution, not the artistic common theme for the submitted art works and texts. The publication will be available both as a printed and an online publication. 

The publication will be launched during the seminar and a network meeting in Kirkenes, June 9–10, 2022, organized in collaboration with Pikene på Broen.

Download the first issue of the Arctic Art Newspaper here.

Credit: COURTESY THE ARCTIC ART BOOK FAIR AND BARENTS SECRETARIAT.

Samizdat—the effectively illegal production and circulation of texts outside official channels—was a major cultural phenomenon in the later decades of the Soviet Union where the state held a monopoly on textual production. At the centre of samizdat culture was the reader: readers created demand for samizdat texts, readers manufactured new copies using typewriters, and readers circulated texts to new readers. But the ordinary samizdat reader left few if any records behind. During this webinar, Josephine von Zitzewitz introduced samizdat as a reading culture and presented innovative methods for collecting and interpreting information from and about the elusive “ordinary samizdat reader.” Dmitry Kozlov showed how uncensored feminist magazines of the late 1970s and the early 1980s simultaneously challenged and succeeded the tradition of Leningrad samizdat. The conversation was moderated by Tanya Busse, visual artist and co-director of Mondo Books, an independent book platform that mediates artists´s publications through exhibitions, book fairs, workshops, launches and other events, such as the Arctic Art Book Fair. 

Credit: This video was originally published by the Barents Secretariat on June 15, 2022. COURTESY BARENTS SECRETARIAT. 

This story is part of the Barents Secretariat Spotlight. View more content from the Spotlight here.

The Norwegian Barents Secretariat strongly condemns Russia’s unprecedented military aggression against Ukraine.

The Barents Cooperation was established as a peace project in 1993, after 45 years of cold war. The foundation of the Barents Cooperation has always been people-to-people contact. The goal of the Barents cooperation is to remove cultural barriers and to build bridges across borders. During almost 30 years, we have gone from closed borders to close ties between the people in the Barents Region. The cooperation between people from all areas of society like schools, municipalities, NGOs and cultural institutions, the so-called people-to people-perspective, is an important keystone. Through meetings between people in the region we build down barriers and increase our mutual understanding.

Unfortunately, people-to-people cross-border cooperation in the north has long been constrained due to the increasingly authoritarian regime in Russia. The situation for civil society is now extremely difficult, and the uncertainty arising from Russia’s military attacks makes effective cross-border cooperation even more challenging. Unfortunately, the impacts of this will be felt at the local level, particularly by people living in the north.

In our spotlight the Norwegian Barents Secretariat will focus on the positive and successful cooperation between artists and cultural institutions that normally takes place across the Norwegian-Russian border.

While the Norwegian Barents Secretariat stands behind the Norwegian government’s demand that Russia immediately ceases its military operations and seeks a peaceful solution, we will continue to support people-to-people cooperation and contact. In the current situation we have suspended contact and cooperation with official Russian entities, but encourage contact and cooperation with independent Russian artists and organisations.