The Northern Initiative

I am currently working with Anchorage Museum in Alaska at the project The Northern Initiative developing a research project over the course of the next years.

The Northern Initiative brings together thought leaders to explore the current and future state of the North and the Arctic through contemporary art and other narratives that inform, question and lead to further exploration and collaboration.

As one of the premier cultural institutions in the Circumpolar North, the Anchorage Museum is undertaking a Northern Initiative to explore the key issues facing the North and the people who inhabit it.

The Northern Initiative brings together Alaskan and international artists, scientists, anthropologists, historians, decision-makers and influencers immersed in Northern issues. The goal: to explore and discuss challenges facing the North today and develop insights leading to a greater understanding, broader perspective, and celebration of
place and the North.

http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/about/northern_initiative/index.aspx

I am interested in how different modes of mapping, notating and sensing the environment of alternating landscapes, making geographical timespans perceivable within the human timescale is informing the intimate notion of space and place.
I want to develop a dualistic survey, using satellite imagery on the distant view and a human size camera obscura on the everyday human landscape. Thereby creating an artificial dialogue between the distant gaze of the objective satellite and a close up and extremely slowed down geography of the human everyday place. The artistic work may take form as “mental maps” for the mind to navigate beyond well known time horizons and thereby encourage a long view.