Tulossavotta finished Arctic Circles

Eleven days have passed and Arctic Circles Art & Design Summer School has come to an end. Field Case results were shared in Tulossavotta arranged in Pilke. 

The international and multidisciplinary Sustainability team was proud to present their concept of a cultural park called Varddos. Team's task was to provide a creative input and inspiration for the planners for use and design of the former ice hockey field and Kiianpuisto area in Inari center. The result is a place and a space where people like to meet, chat, be and observe: Varddos. Varddos is the heart of Inari where paths start and end, a place where villagers can gather and strangers meet. It is a place for activities and festivities that keeps old traditions alive and invents new ones. It is built from sustainable and natural materials of wood, stone, land and it is changing and organic in structure. Varddos is tradition going into the future. 

The aim of the Art team was to plan a welcoming party for the artists arriving to the Art Biennale of Ii 2012 and for the local people living in Ii. As a final result of the workshop RiverSounds, the team created an Art Trail that started from the Art Center KulttuuriKauppila and led the people to the new environmental art park of Ii. The performative walk was based on a story written by a local participant. The trail told a story of the spirit of log floating and the artworks that the different groups had made were part of it, as the story continued with the trail. The event and the works achieved their final forms naturally through making. Small groups started planning their works to different places. In the end all the pieces found their place in the puzzle of RiverSounds workshop and the story made it whole.   

There were two teams working in Rovaniemi in the field of service design. The one working with Pilke case suggests that forest would spill out outside the Pilke building. The co-creative processes with customers proved that forest is a state of mind, in a way almost a holy place for many finnish people. In team's results a forest feeling reachs a potential customer even before he steps in. This happens through the touch of forest - e.g. images and sounds. Wouldn't it be nice to traverse on the way a underpass covered with beautiful forest graffities, hear birds singing in the staircase or get guidance by signposts familiar from hiking tracks?

Rinteenkulma Shopping Mall service team presented their ideas about how to make the mall more customer friendly. The team has very nice suggestions for elements upgrading navigating from one shop to another. These elements deal e.g. with infoboards that categorize the shops and marking the parking areas and other mall facilities. The team was inspired by metromaps - good idea to point out the "stops" wouldn't you say? 

WDC2012 Helsinki-Rovaniemi thanks all the participants and partners in cooperation for giving their contribution to the first Arctic Circles Art & Design Summer School!

Riversounds Ii - environmental art produced by a community

Get a hint about what is happening in Ii! Hardworking participants are doing well with their artworks - bringing their visions alive through art. Pictures introduce the use of community art and environmental methods. Watch the videos from Riversounds Ii here and here.

Riversounds expressed through environmental art

Riversounds Ii makes progress in tandem with international Arctic Circles participants and local people. The group has been planning the sounds to produce by force of the river. The workshop has excited also audience and workshoppers have got to introduce environmental art.

Arctic Circles is not only about hard work: there's also time to relax and enjoy Finnish early summer. Camp-fire might be exotic to our foreign guests!

Arctic Circles rises to the design challenges in Rovaniemi, Inari & Ii

The Field Case week of the Arctic Circles sprang into action with the Design on Wheels at the end of the first Arctic Circles week! Design on Wheels went ahead as excursions to the culture targets on the way to Inari and Ii where the Field Cases were waiting for the designers! Students taking part in the Arctic Services Rovaniemi -Field Case had also an opportunity to hop in one or the other of the buses and get back to Rovaniemi in the evening. 

The bus to Inari broke its journey at Särestöniemi Museum and Sami Museum Siida. Riversounds' Inari participants visited in Kemi Culture Center's Art Museum. 

Weather favoured people in Inari and they got rid of their "winter furs" by plopping in the freezing cold lake.

Arctic Services Rovaniemi has Science Centre Pilke and Shopping mall Rinteenkulma as partners in co-operation. The group divides into two groups seeking for solutions for challenges described by Pilke and Rinteenkulma. The cases relate with customer experiences and service devising. Arctic Sustainability Inari -group gets to make a design outline for a Culture Park. According to the guideline of group's orientation - sustainability is the main focus for planning. Sustainability is taken into consideration from cultural and environmental points of view. Riversounds Ii is about producing an art work consonant with the headline "Riversounds". Ii hosts the annual Art Biennale of Northern Environment and Sculpture Art, in 6.6.2012. The Art Field Case participants will plan and create artistic and/or interactive environmental performance that will lead the quests to the new environmental art park in Ii. 

Interesting week in the offing! Stay tuned to Arctic Circles!

The results of the three Field Cases are presented at Tulossavotta on Thursday the 7th June at 13-16 in Pilke. Welcome!

Riversounds - Art Field Case in Ii 4.-6.6.2012

Riversounds - the Applied Art challenge in Ii 4.-6.6.2012. Art Field Case students will take part in a series of workshops led by experts and students from the Faculty of Art and Design, University of Lapland. Ii hosts the annual Art Biennale of Northern Environment and Sculpture Art, in 6.6.2012. The Art Field Case participants will plan and create artistic and/or interactive environmental performance that will lead the quests to the new environmental art park in Ii.

The idea of the workshop is to produce artworks that will be included at the opening of this important international environmental art event. The work starts in the Circle of Art during the Arctic Circles' Rovaniemi week when the participants get acquainted with the theme, plan the artworks, make prototypes and test materials for the final artworks at Ii. Art Field Case participants will make art works with groups of local people in Ii by using community art and environmental methods.

The workshop will play on the theme of The Kemi River which can be approached from many different perspectives; What are RiverSounds? How and why do they occur? What kinds of associations are connected to river and its sounds, historically and today? Locally and globally? How can this be expressed through environmental art and design? RiverSounds is hoping to bring the visions of the participants alive through art! 

The country’s longest river, the Kemi River, rises near the Russian border and flows generally southwest for about 300 miles (483 km) to the Gulf of Bothnia at Kemi town. In this workshop participants will design soundscapes in form of natural instruments that the river can play. What seems to express the Sounds of River is depending on the ideas and visions of the participants and their imagination. The Field case creates a meeting place between the local and the global communities through artistic expression.

• Participants: International students of the Arctic Circles Summer School and local people in Ii
• Teachers: Professor Glen Coutts and Senior lecturer Maria Huhmarniemi
• Assistants: Sofia Waara, Katri Konttinen and Heidi Huovinen 

Ii Biennale of Northern Environmental and Sculpture Art: http://www.artii.fi/index.htm

 
Arctic Circles kesäkoulun taiteen kenttäkohde "Riversounds Ii" järjestetään Iissä, jossa kansainvälisen kesäkoulun osanottajat ja paikalliset tekijät suunnittelevat ja toteuttavat taideteoksen Ii Biennaalin avajaisiin. Ii Biennaali tuottaa ekologisesti kestäviä pohjoisen ympäristö- ja veistotaiteen teoksia Iin kulttuuriperintöalueille. Kesäkoulun Riversounds Ii -työpajassa leikitellään yhteisö- ja ympäristötaiteen menetelmin teemalla "Joenääniä". Mitä joenäänet ovat? Miten ja miksi ne esiintyvät? Mitä mielleyhtymiä jokeen ja sen ääniin liittyy? Historiallisesti ja meidän ajassamme? Paikallisesti ja globaalisti? Miten joenääniä voi ilmaista ympäristötaiteen ja muotoilun keinoin? Riversounds Ii tuo osallistujien mielikuvat eläviksi ja näkyviksi taiteen kautta, kun työpajassa suunnittellaan ja toteutetaan äänimaisemia luonnon instrumentein.