The UArctic project Agents for the New North, led by our Icelandic members, has been awarded funding of 400,000 Danish krone through the . The project is focussed on creating opportunities for youth engagement for the UArctic Congress, now postponed to May 2021.
Agents for the New North will to mobilize Arctic youth through UArctic’s Thematic Networks and Institutes, and our strategic partnerships with APECS, the Arctic Youth Network and the Sámi Education Institute, in order to bring new ideas forward and lead action towards more livable Arctic communities. Through their participation in UArctic Congress workshops and sessions led by these networks, these young people will work to find innovative solutions that improve the lives of northerners and northern communities. The activities will address critical issues facing the region, including the three principal priorities of the Icelandic Arctic Council Chairmanship program for 2019-2021: Arctic marine environment; Climate and green energy solutions; and People and communities of the Arctic. A special youth panel will focus on the future of the Arctic, taking into focus the issues raised by the current pandemic..
The exhibition project Nature in Transition - Shifting Identities has also received a generous grant of 190.000 Danish krone the same programme. The project entails an exhibition, a publication and a seminar to be presented at the UArctic Conference in Reykjavík in May 2021 under the auspices of the Iceland University of the Arts (IUA).
Nature in Transition - Shifting Identities seeks to demonstrate how the arts can support sustainable development in the region by bringing awareness to pressing issues of today as well as to the commonly shared background and histories that connect and bind in a language accessible to all. It considers how artists, designers and architects of the four nations of Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland, have in their research and art practice exposed our cultural attitudes towards nature and how nature has shaped our identities. In the last decade research in the arts has established itself as a professional method of practice. Artistic research challenges general definitions of research methodologies, recognizing the values of contemporary cultural practices as an important contributor to expanded knowledge and advanced approaches, often in collaborative effort with other fields of expertise. The aim here is to present voices of the arts in the context of scientific, social and political debates on the developing state of affairs in the Arctic.