The idea in our workshop was to bring a fun and easy way for Arctic Congress attendees to take part in art experiences and have a small creative piece to show to other attendees and, at the end of the day, take home with them. The workshop aimed to not only create fun activities but also to stimulate thoughts and conversation on the topic of Arctic sustainability and lifestyle via creative outlets.
Text: Anniina Pennanen, Virve Pietilä and Kuutti Terävä, University of Lapland, Finland
Cover photo: Figure 1. Some of the finished postcards. Photo: Annamari Manninen, 2024.
The workshop revolved around the theme of the Arctic and how people viewed it. Attendees were allowed to choose from a variety of handmade rubber stamps on wooden blocks with Arctic themes, such as reindeer, polar bears, tourists and snow, and create their own postcards however they pleased. The subjects of the rubber stamps were taken from a previous art-based collaboration project, where young people were asked to picture their Arctic. The paint was used to create the pictures, allowing the colours to be mixed for an even wider range of artistic freedom. The colours provided were red, yellow, green, blue, black and white. The card bases were the size of regular postcards and were also white. Along with rubber stamps, coloured markers were provided to decorate the cards even further, or to write their own Arctic greetings.
Exhibition visitors were also invited to participate in a collaborative video artwork. They were asked to fill in the sentence “My Arctic is…”. The chosen word about the Arctic was written on the paper and the person was filmed with the paper in front of their face. The recorded videos were edited for a collaborative video art that was displayed in the exhibition the next day. The aim of the video and invitation to participate was to evoke thoughts and to share the meaningful aspects of the Arctic. The video as well as the postcards drew a collaborative portrait of the participants with the idea for the elements they want to sustain and share with others from the Arctic.
People who came to the workshop seemed enthusiastic about the idea and some at tendees made several individual postcards, getting increasingly creative in their ways of implementing the given method. Some people stayed and made very natural and realistic landscapes, whilst others concentrated on their favourite animals or how they wanted to represent their home. A few even got more creative, and used the rubber stamps to create pictures of completely different subjects. One person even used the stamps to make a portrait. Some people sat alone and did their postcards with high concentration for the task, left their postcards on the rack to dry and left. Others conversed either with us or other attendees, sharing their thoughts and ideas about their cards as well as the other ones that had already been completed and left for others to enjoy.
For inspiration in the workshop room, there were exhibited the postcards made by Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian children in an art workshop held for them previously in the project. People could also read the greetings the children wanted to share. The greetings people left themselves on the cards were varied. Some wanted to send greetings from the Expo to their family and friends, and some wanted to send greetings to the politicians who have made decisions about the future of the Arctic.
People who talked and stayed to share their opinions seemed to enjoy the workshop. The ready-made rubber stamps made the workshop easily accessible to visitors with different skills. The rubber stamps were also vague enough, so they could be made to represent many different countries’ nature and cultures, without being too specific.