Arctic Practices

464 pages

The book emerges at a critical juncture wherein the very stability of Arctic ecosystems hangs in a precarious balance induced, almost entirely, by humans. This volume assembles forty-six contributors—designers, educators, artists, photographers, filmmakers, some Indigenous, some residents, and some visitors to the Circumpolar North—to create a polyvocal assembly of Arctic practices.

As a geographical reality, conceptual framework, and region with shared physical characteristics, the Arctic emerges from a complex intersection of Indigenous knowledge systems, colonial histories, and scientific paradigms. From early Greek measurements of Polaris’s position to today’s satellite monitoring of rapidly retreating ice sheets, understanding of this region has been shaped by successive waves of external observation and internal resistance. This tension between ways of knowing—between Traditional Knowledge holders and (often Western) scientific frameworks—lies at the heart of contemporary Arctic discourse and design practice.