Open sourcing the Arctic

I returned last week from a week in Iceland, where I was judging the architecture competition for an Arctic mobile media-centric work and living unit, and meeting with the other partners of the Arctic Perspectives Initiative (API) – HMKV, Germany, Projekt Atol, Slovenia, The Arts Catalyst, UK, C-TASC, Canada, and Lorna, Iceland.

Marko Peljhan (Projekt Atol) and Matthew Biederman (C-TASC) had made a working trip to Igloolik, Nunavuk, in the far north of Canada, during July and August, traveling with a group of Inuit elders and their families in small boats to different islands around Baffin Island and Foxe Basin, revisiting places where the elders had lived before they were moved to the settlement. The journey was being made for a film by Izuma TV, and Marko and Matthew were invited along by Paul Quassa. They reported that it was a very emotional trip for the participants. For the artists, it was a real experience of what it’s like to “live on the land”: arguments over the best routes through sea-ice, fog-bound on barren islands for days, running short of food. The artists tested communications equipment, environmental monitoring equipment and aerial photography from a UAV., which proved useful for collecting aerial images of the sea ice (pictures from the trip are below). As the artists told the story of their trip, we began to get a clear sense of what this ‘mobile media-centric unit’ might contribute to local people’s lives.

The jury selection process went well. We had a fantastic expert jury, including Johan Berte, designer of the Belgian Antarctic station, Michael Bravo from the Scott Polar Research Institute, architect Andreas Muller, and architecture curator Francesca Ferguson. We had received 103 entries from 30 countries. It was a little deflating at first to realise how little research many entrants had made into conditions in the Arctic. There were frequent assumptions about flat, smooth stable ice sheets (more appropriate to Antarctica) rather than the softening tundra and melting sea ice that characterises much of the Arctic today. But in the end we found three deserving prize-winners. Our next steps are to announce the winners to the international media, take the winning designs (and shortlist) back to Igloolik to consult with the people there, and then begin the design process in earnest.

The partners are planning a series of exhibitions and publications in 2010 to share the process – and the wider cultural, environmental and geopolitical context for the project – with a broad public audience. More at the Arts Catalyst‘s website and the Arctic Perspective Initiative website