Ice and Water

Ice and Water is a collaborative project initiated by Dr Monica Germanà (University of Westminster) and Dr Ingibjorg Ágúststdóttir (University of Iceland). ‘Ice and Water: Circular Thinking on Cultural and Environmental Sustainability’ will comprise a set of interdisciplinary events, gathering researchers, practitioners, as well as arts institutions and policy makers. The aim is to push arts and culture to the forefront of discussions about sustainability and establish a dialogue with indigenous Arctic voices and local communities from the Far North.

Project Background

Scientific data on the melting ice-caps and rising water temperatures has been delivering urgent messages about climate emergency and its impact on the Arctic for decades. Scientists have been issuing warnings about the state of the Arctic for a long time, but their message has largely remained unheard or ‘unfelt’ by communities in the West.

At the ‘Living Nature: Art, Science and Indigenous Knowledge’ event hosted by the British Library on 28 October 2021, Canadian Inuit advocate and author of The Right to Be Cold (2015) Sheila Watt-Cloutier called upon writers, story-tellers and thinkers to find imaginative ways of conveying these pressing issues. A similar message has been repeatedly articulated at the Arctic Assembly in Reykjavik. In 2022 Mads Qvist Frederiksen, Director of the Arctic Economic Council specifically called for the integration of science and traditional knowledge to be mediated by arts and humanities scholars, artists and writers.

Can the arts and humanities offer the key to unlock a more sustainable Arctic ecology? How can local beliefs and indigenous knowledge help us think differently about ice and water in the Arctic and the Far North? Can the fluidity of water underpin a sense of shared identity among the borderless community of Arctic indigenous people? Can ice build bridges among indigenous communities across the Arctic and the Far North?