2024_Alternative Cartographies. Online symposium
"Alternative Cartographies" is the culmination of Åsa Stjerna's postdoctoral artistic research project, "Sonic Visions of the Arctic" (2021-2023), generously supported by the Swedish Research Council. This symposium presents outcomes of Åsa Stjerna’s postdoctoral artistic research and brings together scholars from different Nordic regions who critically engage with established representations of the Arctic through sonic arts, environmental photography, art history, and sound studies.
Ever since its "discovery," the Arctic has served as a stage where the past, present, and future of the planet's environmental and geopolitical dynamics are enacted. Recent years have witnessed an intensification of these imaginations and projections, propelled by anthropogenic climate change, rapid resource exploitation, geopolitical maneuvering, mass tourism, and heightened global awareness and activism concerning environmental issues (Körber, MacKenzie, and Westerståhl Stenport, 2017). However, the Arctic image itself is far from uniform; it is a complex and diverse concept that defies any singular narrative, particularly a Western-centric one. As Körber, MacKenzie, and Westerståhl Stenport assert, the Arctic has never existed as a homogeneous entity.
Consequently, depending on whose perspectives and images are privileged in shaping our understanding of the Circumpolar North, different interpretations emerge, influencing our perceptual awareness.
This symposium present findings and engage in discussions about ongoing research from art and humanities, spanning a wide range of critical perspectives related to the Arctic, such as "artistic imagination and dystopia", "sensorium", "photographic testimony," "indigenous knowledge," "scientific construction," and "geopolitical and environmental site of great global significance" among others.