Future North Vardø Future North Vardø FUTURE NORTH — VARDØ ON THE PAMPHLET SERIES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Publication details Future North — Kola The research project Future North ON FUTURE NORTH 9. CO-CREATING A CULTURE Future North — Svalbard has been funded by Research → 7 OF CARE THROUGH THE Edited by: Future North — Vardø ­Council Norway­ (RCN) VARDØ HUB Andrew Morrison Janike Kampevold Larsen This is one of three pamphlets that Future North is grateful to Vardø 1. INTO THE FUTURE Morrison, Bertheussen Peter Hemmersam are outcomes of the Future­ North Restored, Jørn Jensen, Eva Lisa Andrew Morrison Skrydstrup, Kampevold project at AHO. They are designed Robertsen, Maria Bertheussen → 11 Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen Editorial assistance by: to complement more formal Skrydstrup for collaboration. Vlad Lyakhov research outputs as well as present → 105 material from the territories and ter- 2. RUINS IN REVERSE Cover photos by: rains the project team and adjunct Janike Kampevold Larsen 10. FUTURE VARDØ — Annie Breton members travelled and from where Janike Kampevold Larsen we were based. The pamphlets offer → 20 IMAGINARY CITY Jérôme Codère a mix of materialities and media, Morgan Ip Martin Danais showing experimental writing, 3. TRANSECT WALK → 119 ­student projects and reflections on All large scale photos by research. Peter Hemmersam ­Janike Kampevold Larsen unless → 32 11. WATER WORDS indicated otherwise On NODE Berlin Oslo: Narratta NODE is a Berlin- and Oslo-based Pamphlet series design: design studio founded in 2003 by 4. WALKING THE HIGH WIRE → 124 NODE Berlin­ Oslo Anders Hofgaard and Serge Rompza. William L. Fox The studio works collaboratively → 50 CONTRIBUTORS ISBN 978-82-547-0328-1 across various media for a diverse range of clients from individuals to → 130 Published by OCULS at AHO: institutions, focusing on print, 5. METHODS FOR PROBING www.oculs.no ­identity, exhibition and interactive FUTURES: VARDØ www.aho.no work. Besides studio projects, NODE gives lectures and holds workshops Henry Mainsah An outcome of Future North: at art and design academies. → 54 www.futurenorth.no

2019 © Future North 6. SAVOUR THE PAST, TASTE THE FUTURE Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker → 56

7. VARDØ TRANSFORMED Thomas Juel Clemmensen → 70

8. STUDENT WORKS: Vardø Transformed → 72

REVITALIZATION OF ALLMENNING Akie Kono → 74

UNEXPECTED TRAJECTORIES / VARDØ’S TRANSIENT HERITAGE Annie Breton → 76

TENDING THE LANDSCAPE Élisabeth Baril → 92

UNCOVERING AND DISCOVERING RETHINKING CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT IN VARDØ Jérôme Codère → 96

HARBOUR(ING) HISTORY Heidi Marja Komonen → 100  5  4 On Future North

On Future North

The Future North research project studies the relationship between social development and landscape change in the Arctic. The main regions for the research are the Kola ­Peninsula, The Norwegian Arctic town of Vardø, and ­Svalbard. The project is funded under Research Council Norway’s SAMKUL programme, one that is particularly concerned with the prospective social impact of academic research.

Central to Future North is to study places that are trans- forming as the Arctic region is under pressure from several transformation forces, including climate change with subsequent intensified interest from the extraction and transportation industry as significant drivers. As the polar ice cap is melting, and the summer sea ice recedes, areas for oil exploration and new sea routes are being planned.

6 7 On Future North On Future North 9  8 1. Into the future

1. Into the Future

Andrew Morrison

Vardø lies just off the far northern coast of tor and critic of practices and inquiry into Norway. As a low lying island it has had a futures knowledge (Celi & Morrison 2017). long history of habitation, fishing and trade. The chapters that follow are offerings It’s strategic position has always been a key towards understanding the far north, the part of its identity and daily life. The entries Arctic, and just one part of it, the island in this pamphlet tell more about its past, town and community of Vardø. Once a present and futures. They do so from the vibrant fishing town, over the past three perspectives of a research project called decades in particular Vardø has lost most of Future North, located at the Oslo School of its catch, as it were, due to fishing restric- Architecture and Design and funded by the tions and changing practices and facilities. SAMKUL Programme of the Research Coun- Vardø is tethered to the land by a road tun- cil of Norway. Headed by Associate Profes- nel, served by two island harbours and one sor Janike Kampevold Larsen of the Insti- onshore. It boasts a local airport linking the tute of Urbanism and Landscape, the town to a national and international network project investigated the complex changing of global travel, tourists flying in to watch conditions and climate of cultural land- birds and live king crabs crawling their way scapes of the Arctic in the age of the in daily shipments flown to Japan. Much Anthropocene. As Kampevold Larsen and happens in this one small Arctic location; it her co-author Peter Hemmersam write in is a venue for many activities and perhaps their Introduction to the project’s major for both theoretical and applied research book publication: into changing landscapes and landscapes of change. It’s a space of possibility, of explor- In the Future North project, we have ing potential but within a setting that has studied territories that are imbued with a had to find ways to survive the loss of the promise of future potential. Traditionally main livelihood of fishing and to keep they have been regarded as resting asserting its long and proud history. beyond the well-known world, and have been particularly mythologized due to To speak of the future as an outsider in such their remoteness. To us, the circumpolar a space is to seem trite, short-sighted Arctic is a laboratory for investigating almost, unaware of how difficult it must landscapes in the making — their materi- have been to survive winter seas and to find ality and appearance as well as their ways to reconfigure a 20th century munici- ­cultural layers.’ (Kampevold Larsen & pality. Yet the future is already sown in the Hemmersam, 2018). present. The present spawns possible, potential and putative activities and events, Vardø is one of the three landscapes, along programmes and plans because it has to be with the Kola Peninsula and Svalbard, facing imagined. Futures Studies as a transdiscipli- the Barents sea that were selected for study nary field is undergoing changes of its own of relations between people and the changing as the future under the duress of our own conditions of climate and context. While the making through dependence on fossil fuels past and the present matter enormously in and models of ‘development’ that are sys- such an investigation, the project also looked temically unsustainable. Suddenly Vardø toward the future. Uncertain yet filled with seems like an island set out almost into the projections. Uncharted yet only navigable future, in the Barents Sea, a speck on the from given insights and tools. Always just global map of change, yet situated right at beyond reach, tantalising in its promise, the heart of changing Arctic landscapes and always potentially utopian and dystopian. Yet, seas, an island still yet metonymically all of for a university of architecture, urbanism, ours as we begin to more actively engage in landscape and design, such as ours, the fields facing the wicked problems and the wicked of Futures Studies and Anticipation Studies practices of extractive economics and are in need of inputs, that is practical and unbridled consumption. theoretical, for design to operate as a genera-

10 1. Into the future 11 Andrew Morrison While as Arun Appadurai reminds us, the substantial if often slow and deliberative artist Louise Bourgeois and the architect for engagement. For people in place and for future is a cultural fact (Appadurai, 2013), it processes of restoration, repurposing and Peter Zumthor, this monument also has a places that have people who are connected is now being played out ahead of us today as reinvigorating the character and the future disturbing series of mirrors that reflect an to community and who are engaged in work our insatiable human drive for progress and of the town. eternal flame back to one, searing the pres- and leisure that are buffetted by the weather a lack of care for the environment and ent with the agonies of the past. Hugely and shift within and between the expansive resources have led us into the slipperiness Svein Harald Holmen has been central to expensive, for some residents the installa- annual swings of dark and light. of the Anthropocene Age. This is a still very this resilience with revival. Its hard to think tion however is a symbol of a lack of consul- fuzzily yet fearfully framed aeon character- that the local hardware store or the North tation about its processes of selection and Here you will find a photographic essay by ised by the complex and dynamic changea- Pole Bar would not have existed without the placement in the very community in which it Janike Kampevold Larsen that addresses ble nature of climate change, (indisputably sheer determination and organistional skills, stands. For visitors it is a truly disturbing matters of solastalgia she summarises as acknowledged by science in a time of not expertise and collaboration that across the reminder of judgement past, grounded in a concerning ‘physical and mental stress that only fake news but facile politics of con- town have marked out the actions and fundamentalism of time and place. arises from seeing your home environment sumption and denial). It positions us within achievements of Vardø Restored. In our deteriorate due to climate change’ while our own self destructive experiential narra- view this has been possible because of the ‘The Damned, The Possessed and the summarising many of the activitie of the two tives today, and tomorrow and the days and will of local inhabitants to take care of their Beloved’ was the title Bourgeois gave her overlapping key projects. One of the core decades that follow. We live within systems own lived environment. The island and its installation. Vardø is clearly the dedicated partners in Future North Peter Hemmersam, that we have influenced, but that play out waters matter intensely to them and to their home of the towns people and the members from urbanism at AHO, reflects on our beyond our control and are likely to continue own identities. It’s into this setting that we of Vardø Restored are devoted to its sur- uptake of the transect walk with a tool to use to do so as accumulations of past action have entered as a different and exploratory vival and do not operate as if damned to a to understand the town more fully, adapted permeate future effects. project configuration of disciplines, experi- dreary future. The project has been a mas- from an earlier NFR project YOUrban in ence, interests and motivations. sively encouraging entry point for the which he and I paticipated as part of our In this context, human scale is hard to Future North team and visiting students shared strategy as directors of two of the fathom, just as are the rapidly changing The island has long been teeming with life. and researchers. It provides a perspective four research centres at AHO. One of our commercial and cultural conditions as oil Vardø has been a site for human settlement, on place and a platform for continued international partners Bill Fox, a renowned and gas fields are not developed, including from the Iron Ages, as well a nexus for com- engagement, albeit fighting for funding — writer on polar zones, reflects on being in the those off Vardø, and plans and earlier strate- merce and travel. It’s strategic position and and achieving massive success right into landscape of Vardø. Interdisciplinary meth- gic foresight methods bob about in the bay, ice-free waters have meant that in recorded 2017. ‘Darkness shall give way to sun’ is writ- ods — contextual, sensory, experimental — unmoored from the once seemingly fast history it’s been an outpost for Danish ten in the town’s coat of arms. The future and practices, and from Futures Studies, are anchors for future planning. That the future administration and rule, seen today in the might always be brighter here, we laugh, as what Henry Mainsah takes up in his chapter. has always been unforeseeable, an unknown Vardøhus Festning (an octagonal fortress we are encouraged by the constant will and known, is now more complex and on a global and museum), but it has also been a venue physical energy on the part of Vardø Vardø Transformed — Cultural Heritage and scale. This is intensified in terms of local for overzealous witch hunts and executions, Restored to revive the cultural character of Place-Based Development was the title of a changes and especially in the circumpolar and a haven for flourishing regional trade the town. As part of the growth of Land- studio run by Thomas Juel Clemmensen and region under rapid transformation as ice and especially fishing in the abundant local scape Architecture and Landscape Studies his contribution outlines the intentions and melts, glaciers shrink and sea levels rise. waters into the 20th century. Vardø over- at AHO, including the joint programme in practices of its landscape pedagogy, ones The future is dynamic, a dynamic now, a came Nazi occupation though more of its Tromsø with UiT, the Arctic University of that are taken forward into his new appoint- dynamic in motion. wooden buildings survived than in most of Norway, the project has worked closely with ment to the UiT staff. These reflections are regional Finnmark as retreating forces Vardø Restored to build experience, experi- materialised in the next chapter that I type Vardø and spell check this document, scorched all in their path. Then, for entirely ence and reflections on Vardø as specific includes the work of two master’s graduates and the software changes the name to Verdi. different reasons, the town lost roughly half place, an arctic city, a cultural landscape Brona Keen and Miles Hamaker in landscape I laugh out loud at my lack of precision: I its population since the mid 1990s as the and a site for prospecting the future. studies that reveal the multi-literacies and, should not have clicked on the replace but- fishing industry all but collapsed. indeed, futures literacies that are key to the ton. Verdi. Not just the sound of Italianate Investigating past, present and future has joint programme between AHO and UiT. opera but the Norwegian work for meaning. Over time Vardø has been marked by an been central to our work. This collection Next there follows a jointly written account To have meaning, or to have value. To be val- entrepreneurial spirit, fearless forays into therefore gathers together a diverse set of of negotiating change in the potential and uable. How is this project to make meaning, stormy seas and a strong measure of resil- activities and outcomes from Future North. actual transformation of the former Grand when it is an heuristic in its own right, an ience. On a clear day one could nearly see The project has deliberately set about Hotel to a community oriented social and expedition itself to find out what may need over to the Murmansk fjord in the Soviet engaging with Vardø from different perspec- cultural hub for innovation and shared to be found out …. Union; the gap in the line of hills is still visi- tives. In part this reflects our various interdi- events. This points more generally to the ble for contemporary Russia as the pro- ciplinary orgins and practices but it is also a inclusion of a number of summer schools In the face of the universal challenges of tected waters have become the new loca- sum that is greater than those parts. We and studios that have been a part of our changing climates, the local community tion for the Russian military fleet. The have taken up and needed to locate a mix of shared activities in Vardø, with landscape project Vardø Restored has worked tire- looming presence of the Globus domes on methods from the humanities and social master’s students from AHO, UiT, and once lessly to regenerate many of the town’s Vardø, allegedly for tracking space debris, science at the same time as engaging with with guests from The University of Montréal. wooden buildings. This has been part of reminds one that this is a site of intensive local wishes and emerging needs, including This too has been extended into new pro- drive to revitalise the built and cultural envi- data gathering and processing, a beacon of our own. And our work has been conducted jects such as that underway into bakeries ronments so as to regain a sense of civic NATO and that while the facility is ever pres- through design and with people from the and their histories and potential as future. pride, engagement and momentum toward ent it is always closed to public access. town, informed by their choices and experi- These initiatives have been about place: emerging 21st century Arctic futures. Mem- ence, at times pressured by their interests. Vardø as a specific Arctic town, with its own bers of Vardø Restored have welcomed the The Varanger Museum, in its wooden har- So too have we been challenged to make needs and challenges, but also infused with diverse teams of Future North educators, bour side building, contrasts markedly with better sense by working critically with what resources and capacities. As Janike Kampe- researchers, and students, as well as related the Steilneset Monument’s invocation of we bring and what we learn. This is a collab- vold Larsen writes, Vardø is a site that architects, designers and artists to Vardø. fish drying racks in the commemoration of orative and interpersonal venture; a ventur- shows the paradox of built futures that do As interlopers, we have been introduced to the trails and execution of over one hundred ing together to make some sense for a not match their proposed use while the local local needs and conditions, but importantly, persons in the 17th century for witchcraft. future that is aware. One in which knowl- community is increasingly engaged in a pro- to dreams and clear goals and to the very Designed by the internationally renowned edge is not driven for its impact but ideally cess of self-determination.

12 1. Into the Future 13 Andrew Morrison One of the doctoral students in the project, so far and into the future, as in connecting Morgan Ip, a Canadian architect studying related research in the project and more cultural landscapes in Future North, pre- widely. This pamphlet is just one part of that sents experience of his deployment of the change process. The Future North project locative media tool MyVardø tailored to the thanks colleagues and friends in Vardø, and town. He closes his chapter observing that it hopes that members and their networks the imagined cultural city is rooted in his- may become part of new, different and tory and in the contemporary that are ‘… alternate collaborations and aspirations that conditions of what constitutes the cultural build on this experience and its social inno- landscape of Vardø today, as well as in the vations, cultural enactments and situated creative potential of its citizenry.’ Our stu- knowledge building. dents, as Henry Mainsah notes, have been part of sketching alternative option for buildings and services, the overall research Oslo project connected with the educational pro- November 2017 grammes — masters and doctoral — provide a mesh of potential envisioning that has in some cases already influenced their trans- formation, such as the building tagged with COD IS GREAT.

Our final chapter called ‘Water Words’ takes Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo: the form of screen grabs from Narratta. She is a device, a fictive persona, we have devel- oped and co-authored to allow us to reflect on the human and non-human and ‘design’ and research practices as well as themes and topics of the changing landscapes of Arctic. Narratta blogs about the other two contexts of our inquiries and we have writ- ten about her in our joint project book.

This pamphlet contains some additional material from courses and seminars and the most recent and closing event at which the volume was launched. A joint venture with Vardø Restored, Future North drew together its Vardø team for a shared seminar session on reflection and projection. The seminar was part of a shared almost week long pro- gramme into the continued investigation and communication of landscape of change, that included walking tours and discussion, and where such ‘walkshops’ led into meals and festivities in a lavvo, and then on the final day into an open space for futuring in the ongoing discussion. Following on from earlier collaboration, this workshop opened out to more town members and to repre- sentatives from similar initiatives on the Norwegian coast. Our prospective aim has been to shape a future that is characterised by cultural reflection and energies. This shaping futures in made of cultural entre- preneurship in co-designing spaces for shared exploration and events, diverse yet Appadurai, A. (2013). flexible, informed yet playfully available for The Future as Cultural future design and performative expression, Fact: Essays on offering a site for commercial and cultural the Global Condition. London: Verso. exchange and for active engagement with making climates of change. Celi, M. & Morrison, A. (2017 online). ‘Design Tentative, actual, potential and imaginary, and anticipation’. In Poli , R. (Ed.). The rich in variety and stronger through its con- Handbook of Anticipa- nections. We hope this is also a legacy of tion. Vienna: Springer. Future North, for collaboration with Vardø Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo:

14 1. Into the Future 15 Andrew Morrison Photo: Janike Kampevold Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo: Photo: Janike Kampevold Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo: Photo: Janike Kampevold Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo: Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo:

16 1. Into the Future 17 Andrew Morrison 18 1. Into the Future 19 Andrew Morrison Photo: Janike Kampevold Larsen Kampevold Janike Photo: Janike2. KampevoldRuins Larsen in Reverse

2. Ruins in Reverse

Janike Kampevold Larsen • Photos: Janike Kampevold Larsen

SPACE AND TIME IN PLACE The relationship between humans and their landscapes have been changing quickly When I visited the airport in Kirkenes in 2011, and profoundly over the last decades. The a large banner covered the end wall in the Anthropocene has been introduced as the age arrival/departure area: The oil has arrived! of ‘man’ in a deep geological perspective, as (Oljen har kommet!). Only, the oil had not the era in which we, as species, contribute to ‘arrived’. It still has not. And it may never change the face of the earth as much if not arrive from those sub-bathymetric recesses more than any natural processes. This again of petroleum off the Barents Coast that has has contributed to raise awareness of ‘place’ not quite been located. Still, the prospect of as much more than a spatial phenomenon. a black or liquid gold presence in Kirkenes ‘Place’ in the Anthropocene includes all of the and nearby settlements has had extensive material specter, comprising air, soil, water, material and economic consequences. pollution, as well as the management of all One of the places where the petroleum these — but it also comprises human prac- imaginary has already made an impact is tices and the forces that affect any given Vardø, a small Arctic town located on an place, that is industrial, economic, political, island off the northeastern Norwegian coast. cultural. While we have gained an acute sensi- Here, however, another force has material- tivity of the degree to which local actions ized; a small group of idealists have estab- affect the entire globe, we have also gained lished a platform for city development an awareness of the degree to which each called Vardø Restored. The Future North place is connected to other places. For the research project have been lucky to be wel- cultural geographer Doreen Massey (Massey, comed to work closely with them since 2013. 2005: 130) this is elemental: places are part of a network of global and local relations. She

20 2. Ruins in Reverse 21 Janike Kampevold Larsen also stresses that she considers places “not scape development, landscape referring to a as points or areas on maps, but as integra- material resource that is shared by people in tions of space and time; as spatio-temporal settlement, cities and territories. Landscape events”. hence has little to do with classical beautiful Places in Arctic areas unfold in time with scenes, those pastoral landscapes that are a particular acuteness — very quickly. Many generally restricted to an intimate human of them have been part of global networks scale, and that have very much determined for centuries, while still having a deep his- how westerners look at landscape. Our work torical identity as autonomous local places. has been about understanding and docu- The time of industrial production has been menting what is the most important forces attuned to the natural cycle of resource pro- at play in the different areas, and how popu- duction, fish spawning patterns and sea- lations relate to the, often rapid, changes sonal migration. Now, space is becoming unfolding around them. We are architects, compressed, and with that time. An insati­ designers, literary scholars, and media able demand for carboniferous fuels propels scholars and we are experts in urbanism, the rapid search and development of new participatory action, reading, and political petroleum fields, while new technologies history. Significantly, two members of our propels the exploration for minerals and team grew up in the global south and two rare earths, all of which seems abundant in others have Canadian and East Asian roots. the Arctic. Frequently we have worked with groups Since the turn of the millennium, the of students from Tromsø Academy of Land- Scandinavian Arctic has been governed by a scape and Territorial Studies in the new petroleum imaginary that is mostly due to a landscape architecture education started by speculative hype from the Norwegian Gov- the Oslo School of Architecture and Design ernment. Small towns and settlements have and UiT, the Arctic University of Norway. tried to mobilize and position themselves in Some of these students have visited for the face of the oil industry promising a new weeklong workshops, some for a few days, and better future. The Ministery of Foreign and a few stayed for a month in order to Affairs has been promising new workspaces conclude our mapping of cultural heritage in and increased revenue for municipalities, Vardø. Their work represented the final and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, phase of registering cultural value in the city, Jonas Gahr Støre, often reffered to Finn- work that will form a significant foundation mark as ‘Europe’s New Oil Province’ some for a new city plan. Some of it is included in ten years ago. In Hammerfest, Statoil has this pamphlet. operated their LNG processing facility since Vardø is a contemporary ruin — in a quite 1996, leaving the city with a large annual literal sense. Many of the old fish processing income from real estate taxes. But will this facilities at the harbour are about to fall happen in other places? apart. The quays are covered by moss and grass, the wooden decks are rotten and VARDØ partly collapsed in places. A city that used to total 4000 people, with thousands of visiting When I started this text, I had again just fishermen, hundreds of smaller fishing boats landed in Kirkenes on my way to Vardø where and trading ships during the winter season, I would spend a few days. It was February now counts 13 active fishing boats, and only 2016 and six and a half years since my first two of the fish processing facilities are in contact with the small group of urban activ- operation. Over the last 30 years the number ists and actors in Vardø Restored. Over the of inhabitant has dwindled to around 2000. years, we have built a deep relationship to As a consequence, the population may this small Arctic town. Deep enough to be said to be prone to solastalgia. This is a understand why people grab onto life there concept that was developed by the philoso- and work intensely to create new workplaces, pher Glenn Albrecht in 2003 to describe first and foremost by trying to save the rem- physical and mental stress that arises from nants of this oldest town in Northern Norway. seeing your home environment deteriorate Vardø was the capitol of Finnmark for centu- due to climate change. Generally, solastalgia ries and among its significant traits is the describes a tangible feeling of loss and anni- large number of pre-war wooden buildings, hilation that may arise from people perceiv- many of which form parts of the prolific fish- ing that their home place changed for the ing infrastructure, the first harbour in Norway worse, such as by oil leaks from fracking financed with government money, as early as that ruins valuable farm land, or for example 1897, and a rich tradition for story-telling. by seeing a growing number of empty shop ‘We’ are a research project called Future windows glaring at you on the main street, North, and since 2013 we have been travel- or the house next door falling apart. The old ling, documenting and analyzing the Kola fisherman Arthur Andreassen describes it Peninsula, the Barents Coast, and Svalbard. like this: “I would walk out my door in the Our purpose has been to study the relation- morning, see that demolished house across ship between social development and land- the street, and be depressed for the rest of

22 2. Ruins in Reverse 23 Janike Kampevold Larsen the day.” One could say that this condition is Wrapped up in materialities and light in the a kind of homesickness that resemble nos- midst of such a vast darkness one could be talgia for a place lost, except that those who tempted to think that Vardø is an autono- experience it have not left their homes. mous little community, isolated from the Solastalgia speaks to the relationship rest of the world by latitude and character. between people and place. This is a relation- But it is not so: the city’s cyclical economy ship that, in the time of climate change and has been intimately linked to a global mar- the Anthropocene, is undergoing fundamen- ket for centuries. Its three major recessions tal changes. For many places in the north in the 20th century were intimately linked to this also has to do with a strong dependency the stock market crisis in New York in 1929, on certain natural resources — like fish — a WWII, and the 1967–70 civil war in Nigeria relationship that becomes unhinged when which was then a major importer of stock new industries, like the petroleum and min- fish from Vardø. This was after a decade of ing industries infiltrate in the wake of an ‘ice receding fish populations, which had con- edge’ that retreats north and is bound to tributed to a decline in the industry. eventually disappear. Researchers Berit The city has not been a globally con- Kristoffersen and Philip Steinberg argue nected place only due to the many visiting that the notion of an ice edge is a political fishermen, the Russian Pomor trade and construct. In reality, the so-called ice-edge immigration of Finns, but rather more so is a fluctuating zone, varying seasonally and due to its prolific network of trading nations over the years. (Steinberg & Kristoffersen on a global fish market. Even today, there is 2017). growing export of King crab on to a large global market. Arctic Catch, located in the NETWORKS OF SPACES new industrial harbour in Vardø delivers live king crab to a large Asian market, as well as Vardø is a place also in the literal sense of frozen king crab and white fish to Europe the word (Latin: platea, open space). It is a and Saudi Arabia. Such openness also delimited geographical area, an island in an relates to Massey’s network notion of space, ocean of fish (and presumably oil). Particu- as crisscrossed by interests and agents. larly in the winter time, but also when the island is engulfed in thick summer sea fog, IM/MATERIAL RELATIONS one has the feeling of being alone with the Arctic Ocean — the Ice Sea as they call it Future North’s work in Vardø has so far not here. Now, in February, that large space of left any hard marked material traces in the ocean and air surrounding the city is black city. Over a long period, and most often in most of the day. The city, however, is illumi- collaboration with our students, we have nated, not the least due to Globus II, NATO’s contributed to discussions about what is surveillance radar sitting on top of the considered cultural value — be it material or island, and the Coast Guard’s rescue service immaterial. Results are not easy to measure, facilities next to the old fortress. The dark- but that makes the work all-the-more ness at the margins always have a material engaging: it seems to have had an empow- quality — it seems tangible, thick, with lay- ering effect on parts of the community and ers and layers of greys and blacks. Snow is this provides further motivation for all. whirling, running, packing. The buildings are Some property holders have been inspired plastered with it, even more so than other by seeing and talking to a small group of places due to the high salinity in the air — it researchers and larger groups of students glues the snow, inch-thick, onto the walls. visiting again and again. We see this as con- tributing to an increased confidence that the city does indeed have a future as an attraction for tourists, artists, and even maybe as a future hub for cultural engage- ment and learning. Landscape students have proposed pro- jects for land use strategies, including refur- bishment of harbor areas. Diploma students Brona Keenan and Miles Hamaker have pro- posed a sustainable food network for the city enabling locals to come together in community kitchens and exchange food preservation methods and form small busi- nesses based on the rich resources in the city. We have photo-registered old wooden buildings, empty buildings (20 % of the building in Vardø are empty, and the per- centage is higher for industrial buildings), as well as preserved ones. We have engaged in

24 2. Ruins in Reverse 25 Janike Kampevold Larsen cherished accommodation for wealthy Rus- sian traders and tourists. Then it featured a roof promenade and sun platform overlook- ing the city: it is now in the process of being experimentally transformed into a cultural hub for the town. For Svein Harald Holmen, the key motor and founder of Vardø Restored, it is all about inspiration:

None of the work we do, he says, is of any value unless it inspires people, cre- ates enthusiasm and an understanding of the landscape that makes them want to take part in the future development of stock fish storage sites. Many of them have the city. They need to regard the city as been through multiple stages of use, but a resource, and not as a shameful ruin. It over the last two years some of them have comes down to empowerment, and been refurbished, most significanlty the two social participation — both for Vardø massive buildings on each side of the molo, Restored and for Future North. Østre and Vestre Molokrok. There we see streets planned perpedicular to the main Echoing art critic and curator Lucy Lippard’s street so that once fish could be transported statement in her latest book Undermining: by horse and wagon straight from the dock A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and to the outfields to be hanged on racks to dry. Art in the Changing West, our work is basi- cally about understanding place as place for PLACES ARE FOR PEOPLE people (Lippard, 1999). It is about raising awareness of the inherent qualities of a Vardø Restored is a development strategy material place as a reservoir for sustenance and platform for urban renewal that has where its materialities are shared among workshops with business owners to learn feet steel boat carrying 70 dug-up German been developed over the last 10 years. Its users, and developed in a sustainable way. about their material dilemmas and worries soldiers’ bodies to Vadsø where they loaded main operative model is to secure funding The work hence has a strong existential about infrastructure, as well as of their 80 more before going to Kirkenes. The small for property — and business owners for dimension. And it is laborious and slow. The future prospects. concrete building were The German Nazis basic restoration of building. These encom- slow time of restoration has been reconciled The most intriguing part of the work has temporarily stored corpses had been both pass funding for roof, window and building with the time it takes people to negotiate been interviewing business owners (fisher- ice storage and salt storage before it was envelope restoration, and for business start- futures, private economy and labour. men, entrepreneurs, and human ‘archives’ — turned into a mortuary. ups. Results include the new (and only) Places are for people, states Lippard, elderly people with exceptional memory of Over years of work in Vardø we now equipment/clothing/hard — and software and any art or practice that wants to relate Vardø history). Arthur Andreassen, a sea- know that part of its cultural history is store, the Nordpol pub which forms a semi- to a place, needs to relate to the fact that soned fisherman and community “archive”, exactly the extreme versatility of its build- nal social hotspot, and The Grand Hotel every place is cut through by a network of vividly remembers Jack Jacobsen who ings that have been adapted to new uses restored externally to its former glory as the agents and interest — and people. In Under- owned 4–5 of the ten cod liver oil produc- depending on the fluctuation in industry. We largest building in Finnmark as well as a mining she critically looks at large areas in tion facilities in town. Arthur also recounts find an old Model T Ford on the third floor of the story of Gismondi, the Italian fish buyer an old building used for stock fish storage. who would step off the Coastal Steam Liner Another ice storage has been used as a gym every summer in his straw hat and yellow and a car shop since 1980. Over about 40 linen suit and proceed to inspect all the fish years, the city has customized its supply of on stock. In a good year he would buy it all, architectural structures to the degree possi- which meant all levels of fish processing ble. Yet, much of it is falling apart. workers would be saved for the season, It is evident that a building heritage that from rowers of livers to fishery owners. has linked the Vardø shoreline to a global Arthur remember where bombs fell during network of fish trade, and which has formed the war, and how he was forced to sail a 90 the core of the Pomor commerce, is now partly left as ruins. On its four-decade jour- ney to ruination, the masses of built struc- ture have been repurposed again and again; they have been adapted to an array of differ- ent uses in this dynamic community, until much of the built environment has reached a state of being beyond repair unless new funding is to be allocated for restoration.

The city appears a landscape of production, one in which all buildings and infrastructure have been intimately connected to fisheries. Harbour front buildings are all old fish pro- cessing facilities, blubber cookeries, and

26 2. Ruins in Reverse 27 Janike Kampevold Larsen the ‘The New West’ where for decades sed- the Stokhman gas field in the Barents Sea entary peoples have been marginalised by that were to be operated by Russian industries that are tapping into land and soil Gasprom, French Total, and Norwegian Sta- resources, like gravel, water, minerals and toil. Statoil pulled out of the project in the space, for biological and nuclear testing. summer of 2012, which led to the discontinu- What we may call ‘The New North’ is facing ation of the project a month later. The indus- similar dilemmas, although on a smaller trial harbour in Vardø town now lies largely scale, so far. The possibility of large scale idle, save of Arctic Catch’s king crab facility. mining, in Finnmark and on Greenland, is The new harbour is, in full measure, a ruin in imminent, as is sub-sea mining for rare reverse — a fairly new facility sits gleaming earths in the Barents Sea. The question is in its own brilliant uselessness, while the whether one might learn from large scale city’s old ruin, the fishing harbor remains extraction and exploitation like the one the part of the town’s cultural heritage. A frac- American west has been subjected to, if it is tion of the cost of the new industrial harbour at all possible for small places to be global in Vardø would have saved the old one, and while remaining local. Can one avoid that contributed to rebuilding a place for people. other municipalities than Vardø spend enor- The artist Robert Smithson developed mous amounts on mobilising for a develop- the notion of ’ruins in reverse’ during a walk ment that may never happen, and then can- around Passaic County in New Jersey in not afford to upgrade a fishing harbour that 1967. His is a somewhat blurry term, but it is might have drawn resilient fishermen and one much referred to by artists that deal their families to move to Vardø? with land use, ruins and rural development. The term signifies something that is not yet BUILDING IN THE ARCTIC built, or has just been built, and is raised into ruin before it has even been used. In Recent municipal strategies have worked Passaic County, Smithson photographed towards other, less manifest goals. The lure contemporary monuments like excavators, of petroleum-related revenue led to a large- run-off tubes, fractions of infrastructure, scale harbour development for Vardø. and other ‘dinosaurs’. He describes the new Between 2008–2012 the city and county industrial landscape as if it was pre-historic. municipalities, with the aid of private inves- He collapses time scales by comparing exca- Anthropocene — a future where whatever tors, spent one billion NOK on a large indus- vators to dinosaurs and by talking about the we build now will become traces and ruins in trial harbor at Svartnes, the mainland part of not-yet-built as future ruins. In this concept a possible future. The fantastic thing about Vardø. According to plan it would serve as a lies a reflection over necessity: places and the concept is that it activates our imagina- supply harbour for petroleum operations at regions are being consumed. They are being tion about a time that will come after us — a future. It asks us to re-think the perspective we are building in and for. And this question seems particularly pertinent in Vardø — a place that is, or at least has been, in a squeeze between local forces and external (partly internal) investment forces. Many places in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic find themselves in a similar squeeze. Territories in the north may be considered ruins in reverse. They are exposed to devel- opment forces that wish to make them oper- ative in present day trade and transportation networks. There are still plans to build an oil trans-shipment hub at Veidneset close to developed quickly and for a revenue that Honningsvåg meant to serve the rich Johan may happen now, in a current and possible Castberg-field in the Barents Sea. There are economy — while in fact, they may just as viable theories that the Arctic may see new quickly become superfluous. Infrastructure sea routes, not only in the Northeast passage, and departments building, harbour and but also in the Northwest passage and trans- shopping malls, may quickly be abandoned polar sea routes. It seems quite pertinent to if they are not built upon a careful consider- expect that port cities in the Arctic may con- ation about the long term, for a slow time of tinue to position themselves by building con- societal development. Ruins in reverse tainer harbours and supply hubs to meet new refers then to infrastructure that does not transportation lines and petroleum develop- have a history with a place it occupies. It ment. There is building, but not for people. builds a ‘no-man’s land’, both in Passaic Vardø’s industrial harbor is a splendid exam- County and at Svartnes, Vardø. ple. By making a leap in time, anticipating Smithson’s idea of ruins in reverse and speculating on possible petroleum describes a landscape that has at the same development off the eastern Barents Sea time not yet happened, and already hap- Coast, it was building for possible revenue, pened. In a way then, he also pre-figures the and in the face of a global space and time.

28 2. Ruins in Reverse 29 Janike Kampevold Larsen SLOW, REAL TIME LIVING

People in Vardø, and Vardø Restored, are building in a slow time, a real time. In this current slow time, Jonas Gahr Støre recently visited the community, invited by Kystop- prøret (The Coastal Riot). The venue was the Grand Hotel, now partly refurbished by owners, the Bertheussen family. Maria Bertheussen Skrydstrup offered its east wall for Kystopprørets symbol — and is an active participant in the organization’s claim for a more sensible fisheries policy. It is not only the dilapidated harbour that keeps Vardø from once again flourishing as a fishing community. The national policy on fisheries allows trawlers to own qoutas at the expense of land-based fisherman, and for fish to be processed onboard rather than in local factories. The current policy on fisher- ies is not a coastal policy. It does not include social economic perspectives that allow local smaller scale fisheries to con- tinue being the basis for sustenance in this farthesmost part of the country where the oceans are the only field of harvest. Based on centuries and decades of capi- tal exploitation of the fisheries in the North, communites now challenge politicians on what they will do create and to secure activ- ity along the long Coast of Norway, in those old communities, like Vardø, that are par- tially demolished. There is no long-lasting national initative to secure places where people have been depending on the fisher- ies for centuries. This leaves strong individ- uals like Maria in a predicament: it is very difficult to endeavour to shape an economic strategy to complete The Grand Hotel when she cannot know that there will be a bus- tling town to appreciate and use it. Slow time is one of insecurity. However, in this slow time The Grand Hotel offers a place and time for activism and for activity.

References

Lippard, L. (2013). Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West. New York: The New Press.

Massey, D. (2005). For Space. London: Sage.

Steinberg, P. & Kristof- fersen, B. (2017). “‘The Ice Edge is Lost…. Nature Moved it’: Mapping Ice as State Practice in the Cana- dian and Norwegian North,” Transactions of the Institute­ of Brit- ish Geographers­ , doi: 10.1111/tran.12184.

30 2. Ruins in Reverse 31 Janike Kampevold Larsen Peter3. HemmersamTransect Walk

3. Transect Walk

Peter Hemmersam • Photos: Peter Hemmersam

1 Future North, Project application, 2012. Walking across the island reveals traces trated by Rem Koolhaas’ investigations of of history, everyday life and ongoing alternate states of modernization in non-­ 2 change. Following the same line in sum- ­US/European cities with the aim of uncover- Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Ste- mer and winter, we — researchers from ing the structuring forces of globalization ven Izenour, Learning the Future North project — applied our as the predominant driver of change.5 from Las Vegas (Mas- disciplinary perspectives on the town sachusetts Inst. of Technology, 1972). and landscape. The random discoveries Learning from Las Vegas represents one and encounters of the walks, spurred alternative way of reading the urban land- 3 conversations about change, and about scape based on eye-level perception. Add- Martino Stierli, Las Vegas in the Rearview how the current landscape, the town, ing to this visual approach, theorists like Mirror: The City in its people and the external influences Tim Ingold, Jo Lee Vergunst and Sarah Pink, Theory, Photography, and forces that work on it, shape the but also artists and authors like Guy Debord, and Film (Los Angeles:­ Getty Publications, future of the community and the place. Rebecca Solnit and Robert Smithson, have 2013), p. 318. emphasized walking as mapping practice In the Future North project, travelling and a way of accessing the city and its lived 4 Jilly Traganou, Travel, through and within landscapes and commu- space.6 Walking is even, according to for Space, Architecture, nities has been an important mode of doing instance Ingold and Vergunst, not a neutral Design and the Built research. Our aim has been to study emerg- act but one in which the individual interacts Environment Series (Farnham: Ashgate,­ ing landscapes and to document and with the environment (both ways) and place 2009): 22. describe change in ways that facilitate pub- making occurs.7 lic awareness of possible futures of settle- 5 e.g. Chuihua Judy ments and territories. The study of land- Chung, Rem Koolhaas, scapes carried out in the project is “founded and Tae-Wook Cha, in a conception of landscape as a shared Harvard Design School Guide to Shop- material human experience,” which echoes ping (Köln: Taschen, various forms of mapping in architecture 2001); Rem Koolhaas, and art that moves beyond dominant carto­ ‘Harvard Project on the City, “Lagos”’, in graphic mapping practices, for instance by Mutations, ed. Ste- focusing on perception and individual and fano Boeri, Francine group based mental images of space.1 Fort, and Rem Kool- haas (Barcelona: Actar, 2000): 652, 719. The seminal 1972 book on experimental architectural mapping, Learning from Las 6 T. Ingold and J.L. Ver- Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott gunst, Ways of Walk- Brown and Steven Izenour, was based on a ing: Ethnography and travel to this emerging metropolis devoid of Practice on Foot (Farnham: Ashgate, traditional architectural qualities.2 The 2008; Sarah, Pink, ambition of the book was to reveal the Doing visual ethnog- actual architecture of modernization by ven- raphy: Images, media and representation in turing into an urban environment entirely research (London: dependent on cars and air-conditioning, and Sage, 2007); Guy mapping it from the car and on foot. The Debord, ‘Theory of the Dérive’, Internationale authors abandoned normative theories of Situationniste 2 how cities ought to be in favour of a logic in (1958): 50–54; which, as Martino Stierli puts it, “the built Rebecca Solnit, Wan- derlust: A history of evidence of the existing city, which had walking (London: Pen- come into existence almost “unconsciously,” guin, 2001); Smithson, was to be furnished with a theory after the Robert, ‘The monu- ments of Passaic’, Art- fact”.3 Their work inspired a tradition of forum, 49 (1967): 19. doing mapping and urban research as a kind (Top) Learning from Las Vegas is based on a notion that of architectural production, and of archi- visiting this city is as instructive today as a visit to Rome (on 7 the map) was to the educated minds of the 18th century. Ingold and Vergunst, tects traveling “temporarily to various types (Bottom) Illustration on Vardø city map by Vardø based Ways of Walking. of otherness”.4 This is perhaps best illus- architectural office Biotope.

32 3. Transect Walk 33 Peter Hemmersam THE TRANSECT WALK which functions by looking for difference TWO WALKS The observations and conversations that and diversity of phenomena and observa- took place during and after the transect Learning from Las Vegas was the result of a tions, rather than averages.9 This qualitative In Vardø, MAPPA was used for a transect walks initiated links and connections across visit to city, and in a similar way, we have method has proved effective as a way of walk in January, 2014 (with Bill Fox, an our individual professional and personal used mapping as a way to collectively intro- introducing us to issues of change and invited guest researcher from the Center for backgrounds, across sites and seasons, but duce ourselves to the various places of our future directions of communities and Art and Environment at the Nevada also to theoretical perspectives that relate research. Specifically, we have used the landscapes. Museum of Art), and reflecting the seasonal our experienced to wider aspects of thinking transect walk as a way of mapping and To document the transect walks, we have changes in the Arctic, we followed the same about the future. The POIs with images, text addressing materialities, perceptions and used the iPhone app MAPPA which enables trajectory (in the reverse direction) in June and hashtags have been combined to indi- futures in these communities. The urban groups to map interactively and collabora- the same year. cate themes that form the basis for further transect walk deliberately cuts across urban tively while being on the move through the discussion about the current and future landscapes and is a tool that has been used urban landscape. It enables annotation in conditions of Vardø: by organisations like UN Habitat and the the form of POIs (Points Of Interest) that World Bank for rapidly appraising local include photos, texts and thematic hash- economies in cities in the Global South.8 tags. The app also provides ‘live’ access to Our version of the tool, which we have Instagram during mapping, revealing developed over several iterations in five entirely different perspectives to be locations, implies following an imaginary included. After the transect walks, the POIs line across an urban setting and enabling can be downloaded as digital maps that can sensory and embodied engagement with be viewed and edited in geobrowsers such the urban landscape through walking. In the as Google Earth. transect walk, the line is a tool of selection

STARTING

Starting at the eastern rocky shore of the island, we turned away from the icy Barents Sea and Russia. We walked from coast to coast, through the broadest variety of urban structures, from the rugged coastline, through the city centre and the town hall, to the slightly more benign western coast of the island. This was also the end point of our summer transect. Map data: Google, CNES/Astrium. Map data: Transect 1: 70.372059, 31.124275—70.368291, 31.094207 Morgan Alexander Ip → The Barents Sea #FutureNorth → Date: 26 January, 2014. Peter Hemmersam → and in summer... Participants: Aileen Aseron Espiritu, Bill Fox, Janike Kampevold Larsen, ­Morgan Ip, Peter Hemmersam, Andrew Morrison SURVEILLANCE

The mappings uncovered the role that observation and surveillance has played and 8 Jules N Pretty, A Train- still plays in this town on the eastern tip of er’s Guide for Partici- the country. A 14th century fortress moni- patory Learning and tored and defended against the Novgorodi- Action (London: Sus- tainable Agriculture ans and Russians and in 1769 a celestial Programme, Interna- observatory was constructed here to tional Institute for observe Venus transit across the sun. Today Environment and Development, 1995). the US Space Command tracks the skies from its enigmatic ‘mushrooms’ on the 9 highest point of the island, while the Norwe- Henk de Zeeuw and Joanna Wilbers, ‘PRA gian Costal Administrations tracks ship traf- Tools for Studying fic in the Barent Sea from its Vardø base. Urban Agriculture and Gender’ (Resource Center on Urban Agri-

culture and Forestry, Google, CNES/Astrium. Map data: 2004), http://idl-bnc. Transect 2: 70.368291, 31.094207—70.372059, 31.124275 Aileen A Espiritu → Radar stations idrc.ca/dspace/bit- stream/10625/33988/ Date: 11.06.2014 1/121475.pdf. Participants: Janike Kampevold Larsen, Peter Hemmersam

34 3. Transect Walk 35 Peter Hemmersam KICKSLED TERRITORY

The kicksleds are evidence of wintertime mobility in Vardø, where kicksleds replace bikes. This form of transport relies on sta- bile winter weather as streets have to be snow packed over extended periods, some- thing that climate change might put an end to.

Observatory → Observatory — looking at the #sky Peter Hemmersam → Hard to make out in the photo, but the kicksled is painted in the same color as the house.

EASTERNMOST HOUSE

The curved street with large new houses stands out in contrasts with the pragmatic rectilinear streets of the town centre. Stand- ing in the shadow of the Space Command radar domes, it is hard not to associate it with the sprawling North American style suburban housing areas that accompanied US military installations around the world during the Cold War. At the same time, “the handful of houses planted along [the street], which are afforded spectacular views of the waves and rocks, are generic family dwell- ings that could be sitting in any northern European city, a banal suburb fronting the sublime.”Ⅰ An expectation of a particular contextual Arctic architecture seems to part Peter Hemmersam → curved street of our professional baggage, while the Peter Hemmersam → Kicksled with baby seat dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants appear to be indistinguishable from those in climatically milder regions of Scandinavia. SUBURBIA

New attractive urban districts are built on the hill above the town, while older buildings in the town are empty and in disrepair. A new supermarket here has successfully eliminated a city centre rival. Even as the town is shrinking it is growing — older build- ings are abandoned rather than refurbished, and entirely new structures are built, leaving the buildings that formerly housed these functions empty. Thus, the dilapidated state of many houses in the city are not just a result of out-migration.

Ⅰ Bill Fox, ‘Walking the High Wire’, Future North blog. http:// www.oculs. Peter Hemmersam → easternmost house → Instagram → Peter Hemmersam → New houses no/projects/future- (June 11, 2014) #vglistatilvardø #vglista #russn2014 north/news/? post_id=3590.

36 3. Transect Walk 37 Peter Hemmersam Morgan Alexander Ip → Everything you could ever need Aileen A Espiritu → Fearless sliders on a quiet Sunday.

Peter Hemmersam → curved street Peter Hemmersam → Transformed Street. Nordre Berggate is blocked to make way for the kids’ ski slope.

SEASONAL LANDSCAPES UPWARDS RATHER THAN OUTWARDS

The town has distinct seasonal landscapes. The most extensive conversation on our first Wintertime, wind and snow shapes the wintertime transect walk occurred when we movement of local inhabitants, but the observed that the steepness of the church reverse condition of the snow itself being tower was reflected in other vertical fea- shaped to direct flows was also evident in tures of the island, such as the antennas of one observation of a snow pile that was the Vessel Traffic Services and even the used to block a road to prevent traffic from radar domes on top of the hill.Ⅱ This vertical passing the ski and sliding slope for children infrastructure seemed to reflect a break in the centre of the town. from the horizontal logic of the town’s tradi- tional industry: fishing, which is closely related to its location as an island in the expanse of the Barents Sea. These vertical infrastructures connect the town to places Ⅱ and global locations beyond the horizon. See Bill Fox’ text ‘Walking the high Wire’ elsewhere in this book- Peter Hemmersam → G(r)o(w)ing up in Vardø let (http://www.oculs. Peter Hemmersam → Pointing up no/projects/future- north/news/?post_id= 3590).

38 3. Transect Walk 39 Peter Hemmersam Aileen A Espiritu → Grand holiness Culture → New culture — 210 collapsible seats

NEW VARDØHUS

The large new culture house looks rather alien among the low houses of the city centre. The scale and facade materials of new struc- ture attached to the old town hall in the town centre is a contrast to the surroundings. It is the new dominant feature of the town. The urban chess board provides an image of urbanity on the new south facing square, and the furniture indicate the use of the space which is facing away from the other important public space surrounding the harbour. This new space is designed to be the square the town does not currently have, but it is not in the place where most people are found.

Peter Hemmersam → Nye Vardøhus? Cabin → #urban cabin

DOG AT THE RIGHT TIME

By being in the right place at the right time we witnessed a family episode with a new pet. When we told our local contact Svein Harald Holmen about the episode, he was immediately able to identify the family, and tell the story about the dog’s recent arrival in town. Thus, this otherwise accidental observation provided us with extended knowledge of place, people and everyday life.

Chess → #urban chess Peter Hemmersam → XX’s new dog from Germany ran out into the street in front of us with XX in pursuit.

40 3. Transect Walk 41 Peter Hemmersam HOUSING STANDARD

Unlike their counterparts that we have observed on the nearby Kola Peninsula, where chimneys reveal additional uses, these garages appear to serve one purpose only: as garages. While the inhabitants of Kola live in Soviet era apartment blocks with little extra space for storage and other activities, the residents of Vardø primarily live in warm, comfortable large wooden detached houses with plenty of space.

Garage → Garages on the outskirts of town, like the ones Urban sardines → #urban sardines in Murmansk.

TWO FUTURES RECREATIONAL LANDSCAPES

Two possible futures of Vardø face each This horse riding facility is a reminder of the other across the water: The Stilneset memo- proximity to the town’s recreational land- rial to the history of witch burning is part of scapes. This will continue to be a feature of developing Vardø as a tourist destination and the town in the future. the new industrial Svartnes harbour is con- structed to support a future petrochemical industry. These two seemingly irreconcilable futures are equally pursued by local and national actors.

Tourism → Tourism site — with oil harbour in the background Paddock → Paddock with a view

EDIBLE LANDSCAPE

We had learned that the summer seasonal landscape was one of edible plants identi- fied by locals with a particular interest in developing a regional cuisine. But when we encountered the fish scattered over the high point above the town, we were reminded that real abundance is found in the sea, which is reflected in the rich bird life of the area. According to Tormod Amundsen of the local architectural practice Biotope which specializes in architecture for bird watching, fishing — as it is carried out in Vardø — and birds go very well together: fishing ­harbours are in fact fantastic and biologically diverse.Ⅲ In this way, the city is also a Ⅲ landscape. Conversation with Herbs → Edible herbs? Tor-Emil Sivertsen / Varangerkokken Farming → Urban farming? ­Tormod Amundsen in knows. Vardø on January 24, 2014.

42 3. Transect Walk 43 Peter Hemmersam GLOBAL WARMING

The acute question of how Arctic communi- ties experience and respond to climate change is partially answered by the visible presence of new terraces and balconies being added to the older buildings of the town, that previously had no such outdoor extensions to the home.

Balcony → Added balcony to enjoy #globalwarming Platform → A platform facing nothing. The “millennium place”

LAYERS

Our transect walks revealed numerous mon- uments and visual traces of the layered his- tory of the town, including remnants from the Middle Ages, witch trials and WW2. We even spotted a seemingly discarded monu- ment and what seemed like remnants of his- torical buildings in the municipal storage yard. This seemed, in an odd way, to echo JB Jackson’s argument that when monuments are detached from their hortatory role and no longer celebrate grand historical narra- tives, they become reminders of a ‘vernacular past’ in which historic events and individual heroism is no longer important — an ‘age where there are no dates or names’.Ⅳ

Balcony → Add-on balcony Layers → Deep layers of culture

TOURIST TRAILS

Beside a pleasant view over the sea, the logic of the location and orientation of the outlook platform is not self-evident. The tourist trail for visitors on their brief stopover­ on the Hurtigruten costal steamer hardly overlaps with the movement of the everyday city of the inhabitants of Vardø. This reminds us that while the daily arrival of the boat brings tourists to the town, their direct economic impact is limited.

Ⅳ John Brinckerhoff Jackson, The Necessity Paths → Crossing paths. Entry to the white house? for Ruins, and Other Monument → Was the #monument here? Topics (Amherst: Uni- versity of Massachu- setts Press, 1980): 94.

44 3. Transect Walk 45 Peter Hemmersam Hot chair → Synes synd i den personen som skal sitte i denne Traces of People → Where people are stolen...

SAFE CITY

On a Wednesday afternoon, the streets mostly are empty, but traces of children are found around the swimming pool in the new culture house. The casually dumped bikes evidence the free and safe movement of children in the town. Here, they can go anywhere

Bunker → #WW2 bunker? Bikes → Where bikes go to die

Monuments → Lost monuments

46 3. Transect Walk 47 Peter Hemmersam WHAT WE WERE NOT LOOKING FOR… The act of walking brings forces into play, and the emerging mapping is as much a While we mapped, the landscape and the act product of the activity as of the landscape. of walking often overwhelmed the formality The transect also functions by foreground- of the transect walks and the notational pro- ing our professional and disciplinary ‘lug- tocol. The actual walk deviated from the gage’ of pre-configured notions that we straight line; obstacles were encountered bring on our travels.12 Rather than denying during the walk, and the gaze (and the these notions, the conversations along the observer) was drawn by events and objects transect walk helps bringing them out in the on both sides of the line. The observations open, leading to degrees of reflexivity for we made during our transect walks may the researchers involved. This is an impor- seem like just chance, and while that might tant first step in familiarising ourselves as a be the case, we argue with Gary Fine and group with a new place. James Deegan that it does not mean that that there is not “anything interesting … to Walking and mapping starts unpacking the be learned. It is through our intellectual complex interconnectedness of landscapes readiness, coupled with exposure to a wide and people. While the mapping may be per- range of experience, that we create a sense ceived as random, it points to the fact that of lived experience — ours and others. Each various perspectives exist in any given loca- researcher must be ready to seize the clues tion, and as Canadian Sociologist Alice Mah on the road to discovery.”10 In fact, serendip- reminds us in her book on cities of industrial ity (finding something we were not looking ruination “there is no single imaginary of for) occurs in different ways during our tran- change that will produce prosperous, livea- sect walks.11 Remembering Fine and Deegan, ble, and equitable communities. Rather, we find that accidentally being at the right imaginaries are diverse and contradictory, place at the right time may trigger deeper situated in particular times and places, and insight into processes that are immediately linked to different social actors and inter- visible or graspable. Serendipity may also ests.”13 Our transect walk mapping sessions involve accidentally meeting and building in several places in the Arctic suggest that networks with people telling us about their imagining change clearly happens in differ- experiences and aspirations for the future. ent ways in different locations, and that any Insights may also emerge when what we location, including Vardø, provides multiple encounter triggers links to stories we have ways of understanding what is there as a heard or read before or theory that reflects precondition for thinking about the future our varied academic fields. All these forms of serendipity were active in our Vardø transects.

10 Gary Fine and James Deegan, ‘Three princi- ples of serendip: insight, chance, and discovery in qualita- tive research. Qualita- tive Studies in Educa- tion, 9(4) (1996): 11.

11 Peter Hemmersam, Jonny Aspen and Andrew Morrison, ‘Serendipity and The Urban Transect Walk: Reflections on design and cultural mapping in Arctic cities.’ Paper presented at the Cumulus Conference, Hong Kong Design Institute, 21–24.11.2016.

12 Jilly Traganou, Travel, Space, Architecture.

13 Alice Mah, Industrial Ruination, Community And Place: Land- scapes And Legacies Of Urban Decline (Uni- versity of Toronto Press, 2012): 194.

48 3. Transect Walk 49 Peter Hemmersam 4. Walking the High

William L. FoxWire

4. Walking the High Wire

William L. Fox

The wind where the street ends and the sea begins is gusting over five metres per second, enough to stagger us while we’re standing above the massive green combers pushed out of the Barents Sea. Spindrift blows sideways through the rocks. It’s –5 °C, and we’re wearing multiple layers of fleece, wool, and windproof nylon against the wind chill. ­Taking notes is done with bare hands facing away from the wind in 15-second bursts.

The uppermost street atop Vardø sweeps in vertical on the island. A good guess is that an arc with its apex the easternmost man- the multiple devices track everything that’s made civilian feature on the island. The flying above the ground flying north from handful of houses planted along it, which Iran to Murmansk, as well as the 10,000 are afforded spectacular views of the waves pieces of trash in slowly decaying geosyn- and rocks, are generic family dwellings that chronous orbits. could be sitting in any northern European As we trundle down the snow-covered city, a banal suburb fronting the sublime. street the twin crosses capping the church The only structures sitting higher and more spire are visible most of the way. The first easterly than the tidy dwellings are four church in the centre of Vardø was built in radar domes. It’s not coincidental that on a 1307. A more recent version constructed in clear day you can see the mountains of Rus- 1869 was torched by the Germans in 1944 as sia from here. they retreated from northern Norway. The The transect of Vardø that Peter Hem- current Church of Norway structure, its mersam has plotted for us starts here above interior a slightly chilly and austere the eastern shore, cuts through downtown mid-century Lutheran chapel, doesn’t see and across the historical harbor. It then trav- much traffic on Sundays, but remains an erses the left lobe of the butterfly-shaped important civic center for rites and pas- island to end on the western shore not far sages, as well as the occasional concert. from the spindly radio masts of the Vessel But the dominant height of the spire, Traffic Service. In between stands the while it metaphorically connects Heaven improbably tall isosceles spire of the town’s and Earth, is a reminder that church spires central church. What the transect walks is a were often the most or only visible land- line stretching above town that connects its marks along an otherwise foggy, highly frac- three highest points, all of which are naviga- tal, and isotropic coastline. Ship’s logs con- tional devices for military, commercial, and tained a catalogue of them all along the more ethereal movements. shorelines of this part of Europe, distinctive The four domes atop the geological cli- features standing above each town that the max of the island serve several masters: the pilots used to keep place in the grayed-out Norwegian Intelligence Service, which world of water and sky that is the Barents administers them, the Raytheon Corpora- Sea. tion which built and maintains the largest The several radio masts and real-time one, and the United States Air Force Space tracking screen of the Vessel Traffic Ser- Command, which ostensibly deploys that vices is part of a cooperative monitoring latter device, the 27-meter radar dish of Glo- system run in cooperation with Russia. The bus II, to track space debris. And you can “VTS” tracks every boat and ship on the sea see Russia from the doorstep of its three- surface around the region, paying particu- story building supporting the huge white larly attention to the shipping routes from dome, which is by far the dominant visual Lofoten archipelago north around the

50 4. Walking the High Wire 51 William L. Fox Transecting Vardø — the line and the walk

Varanger and Kola peninsulas to Murmansk. hostile environment. The geo-political and Liquid natural gas and oil tankers, ships car- historical circumstances that require facili- rying nuclear waste, and the commercial ties of global strategic importance be situ- and passenger traffic through the increas- ated in Vardø, an otherwise modest if hand- ingly ice-free Northeast Passage keep the some fishing town, illuminate why this has operators alert. The system uses satellites, been a fortified stronghold in the Arctic coastal radios, some of the radar gear atop since the late thirteenth century. As always, the island, and maritime seniors to plot the the most highly prioritized functions of a constantly evolving relative positions of town are expressed in its verticals, which every vessel. Everyone prays it works, no require the expenditure of more resources doubt. to erect than the horizontal and more earth- All three verticals are linked visually bound buildings of commerce and domicile. from almost any vantage point on the island, Peter’s transect followed a natural fall line and they exist to plot, surveil, assist and from the most global of the instruments to sanction human movement in a profoundly the more regional coastal service.

REFERENCES

‘A Globus II/Have Stare Sourcebook: Version of 2013–09–20’ accessed on January 27, 2014 at: http://www. fas.org/spp/military/ program/track/glo- busII.pdf

‘Eyes on the Barents maritime safety’ accessed on January 27, 2014 at: http://bar- entsobserver.com/en/ security/eyes-barents- maritime-safety

52 4. Walking the High Wire 53 William L. Fox have seen what it means to bring a design pants immerse in and empathise with the 5. Methods for Probing sensibility to looking, noticing and learning narratives, in spite of their gravity and com- about the landscape, the local community, plexity. What is of interest here is the poten- its history and culture. One could see this tial of design techniques and methods to Futures: Vardø when a group of landscape architecture stu- help us make sense of things that are vague, dents went out to explore the town on foot. ephemeral, unspecific, and constantly When they came across an empty building changing. These methods give material at the pier with graffiti painting on it, they form to abstract phenomena, so that that would pay attention to small details such as we can engage with these experientially. Henry Mainsah the north facing elevation, the concrete floors, layout, and internal fittings. They I see methods as devices that are always could make quick sketches and prototypes shaped by the context in which we deploy to convey alternative scenarios of how the them. They cannot be detached from users building could be transformed in the future. and communities and cannot simply be Studying future landscapes poses a meth- almost every empirical endeavour and con- transferred from one project to another. In odological challenge for researchers and stitute an essential component of what and We have observed a wide repertoire of tech- addition to having diverse disciplinary back- communities facing the effects of climate how we know. Thus, knowledge about cen- niques from co-design being employed to grounds, the members of the research team change and industrial development. tral contemporary issues related to global REFERENCES facilitate collaboration between the Future comprised of people of different nationali- Changes brought about by these converging futures, from climate change and the envi- North research team and local community ties (Norwegian, Canadian, Dutch, Ethio- Adam, B. (2009). forces pose significant challenges for com- ronment, to sustainability and resource ‘Future matters: Chal- actors. One of the project’s researchers pian, Zimbabwean, Taiwanese, Greek, munities such as Vardø. This calls for new dilemmas, go hand in hand with the imple- lenge for social theory Morgan Ip has experimented with the use of among others). In Vardø, they were posi- ways of understanding, envisioning and mentation of appropriate methods. and social inquiry’. the locative mapping tool, mybarents.com tioned as outsiders, looking in through a Conference Paper. attuning to futures. How does one go about Although methods are often thought of sim- Retrieved from: http:// to engage local communities with their local variety of lenses. studying the visible and not-so visible ply as a necessity, they can also be stimulat- www.cardiff.ac.uk/ urban environment. Using the tool, he aspects of changes in the environment and ing, inspiring, and provocative. Methods do socsi/resources/Sar- invited people to share ideas for the future What I suggest, here, is that we need to view dinia.pdf (accessed 9 socio-cultural landscapes? What historical not only serve to answer pre-known ques- September 2015). on a map, discuss them, and link into select the making of methods as a process of and cultural resources can communities tions. They can also stimulate latent reali- neighbouring areas. Through this, he tries to design (Mainsah, 2017). I understand meth- draw upon to envision alternative futures? ties and help generate new questions. Balsamo, A. (2010). demonstrate that landscapes are not fixed ods of research inquiry as a process of mak- ‘Design’.­ International How does one convey the emergent charac- Journal of Media and and static but can be shaped and redefined ing that involves an artful combination of ter of climate change related transforma- The renowned cultural theorist and media Learning, 1 (4): 1–10. by the people and the cultures that inhabit skills, craft, and technologies. This is akin to tions as manifested locally? designer Anne Balsamo (2010) lists a series it. During our workshops, we have seen how the work of the bricoleur. Research tech- Coleman, R. (2017). ‘A of actions that frame the methods and tech- sensory sociology of artifacts such as hand-drawn sketches, sat- niques, in this case are understood as forms All these questions point us to a future that niques of design. These actions include the future: Affect, ellite photographs, and computer-generated of situated practical action that are produc- is slippery, ill defined, constantly moving imagining, creating, representing, negotiat- hope and inventive models have contributed to engaging our tive, constitutive, and lead to the emer- methodologies’. The and intangible. Social researchers (Coleman, ing, prototyping, fabricating, building, eval- Sociological Review, collective imagination. When students pres- gence of novelty. 2017; Lyon & Carabelli, 2016) tell us that the uating, and iterating. These actions repre- 65(3): 525–543 ent sketches and collage photos of alterna- future is not an empty space lying in wait for sent techniques can serve as research tive scenarios for what the abandoned Halse, J. & Boffi, L. us to project our visions into from the pres- devices that could help us navigate between (2016). ‘Design inter- wooden fishing house building could be to ent. Neither is it a predefined destination the world of ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’. ventions as a form of community members, we can collectively that we can foresee and arrive at in due time. This could take the form of visions and ideas inquiry’. In Smith, R., better perceive hidden material and poten- Vangkilde, K., Kjaers- Futures scholars, in particular, urge us not that local communities craft in collabora- gaard, M., Otto, T., tial of the urban landscape lying just under- to consider the future as a separate space or tion with design teams. It could also involve Halse, J. & Binder, T. neath the surface. time but as a multiplicity of ideas, critiques scenario writing, narratives, future work- (Eds.). Design Anthro- pological Futures, and potentialities that are reflected in the shops and prototyping. These can enable (89–104) London: Dealing with past present and future con- narratives and objects of our everyday lives new forms of experience, dialogue and Bloomsbury. texts that are multiply situated, mutating (Yelavich and Adams, 2014). The challenge awareness to emerge (Halse & Boffi, 2016). and messy, sometimes requires the use of Lyon, D., & Carabelli, G. is how to tease out these ideas and potenti- They also have the quality of being able to (2016). ‘Researching more speculative methods. Researchers in alities and how do we project these towards materialize and make tangible ideas, con- young people’s orien- the project have experimented with collabo- alternative futures. cerns, and speculations, while paying close tations to the future: ratively developing design fiction personas the methodological attention to the people being affected by challenges of using to communicate issues related to climate These are quite complex questions that no them. Design provides us with a repertoire arts practice’. Qualita- change. In the Future North project, Andrew single research project could pretend to of techniques for creating artifacts that tive Research, 16(4): Morrison has invited us to co-design the fully and completely address. What is clear, allow communities to revitalize their past, 430–445. persona called Narrata, a nuclear powered though, is that in order to address such reflect upon the present and extrapolate Mainsah, H. (2017). narwhal, and a blog based online character. issues, we need methods that enable us to into possible futures. ‘Inventive methods for Narrata has rested underneath the board- studying futures: distance ourselves from the current, the exploring research walks in Verstervågen, recalling the facilities ordinary, the mundane and the ‘real’, in order The Future North project has invited a wide devices from design at the harbour front that were blown up dur- to be able to question the taken for granted variety of students and researchers with and art’. In Proceed- ing WWII. She has commented on the rising ings of The Second and to see possible alternatives. In this backgrounds in landscape architecture, International Confer- temperatures and envisioned future urban regard, I have paid particular attention on urbanism, design, as well as from a variety ence on Anticipation, arctic transformations. Design fiction is how tools and techniques from the design humanistic and social science disciplines to London, 8–10 envisioned here as a way of playfully engag- disciplines can be particularly fruitful in participate in research and planning activi- November. ing with challenging and complex topics. helping us understand, frame, convey, and ties in Vardø. The project has ensured that Yelavich, S. & Adams, For those speaking through the person, as intervene in matters pertaining to futures. the visiting research teams make time and B. (2014). (Eds.). well as for the audience, the persona offers Design as My interest here is motivated by the idea space to explore, to see, and otherwise Future-making. Lon- a means to facilitate self-reflection. The that research methods lay the foundation of sense the environment in their own way. We don: Bloomsbury. idea is to make the audience and partici-

54 5. Methods for Probing Futures: Vardø 55 Henry Mainsah 6. Savour the Past, Taste

Brona Ann Keenanthe and Future Miles Franklin Hamaker

6. DIPLOMA PROJECT: VARDØ CONTEXT PROJECT STATEMENT Historically industry in Vardø was based on In our diploma we explore how local food trade links with Russia and strategic posi- resources may be reassessed to contribute Savour the Past, Taste tion in the Barents sea. The Pomor Trade to regenerating people’s sense of place and (1740–1917) along the North coast of Nor- community development in Vardø, Norway. way traded wood and flour from Russia for Drawing on an anthropologic assess- the Future — Community Fish from Norway, Vardø was a major hub in ment of the Varanger region and Vardø spe- this trade. Trading also occurred with Finns cifically, we have come to understand that a and Sami. The main industries in Vardø were community’s connection to the landscape is Regeneration Through related to fishing activity, food processing directly influenced through food resource and ship maintenance. harvesting activities and the subsequent A slump in fish prices in the 1980s social significances. This importance is not Food Heritage in Vardø caused economic depression, resulting in only economic, but plays an important role unemployment, abandoned of multiple in an individual’s identity and sense of place. buildings (domestic and industrial), migra- In reaction to the 1980’s cod crises and the tion, population reduction by 50% between negative consequences on the city, people, 1980–2010 and a breakdown in community. and economy of Vardø, we propose a series Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker Recently this pattern has begun to of food related educational and processing change through a variety of projects and ini- spaces intended to reveal the now invisible tiatives aimed at building community spirit food infrastructures of the city. These and pride in Vardø. Vardø Restored, an initi- spaces will take on the idea of “allmenning,” ative by Varanger Museum aims to develop being open to public use and community REGIONAL CONTEXT VARANGER & FOOD CULTURE a city strategy, reflecting the cultural herit- direction. To take on this project we have age and business initiatives. Vardø has the explored cultural food heritage of the Varangerhalvøya is a 2,080 square kilometer highest concentration of historic buildings Varanger region, seasonality of existing food peninsula at the very northern tip of conti- … the Unjarga-Nesseby “meahcci” (out- in North Norway. Vardøhus fortress was resources, interviewed a wide variety of nental Norway, just above the Arctic Circle. fields) is where resources are found and established in 1306. Komafest, an art pro- stakeholders, mapped existing flows of pro- Resting in the Barents Sea and only 50 kilo- where harvesting take place. What is ject, was initiated to address the depopula- jection, and gained and understanding of meters to Russia’ border, Varanger is Nor- important locally, is the ability to main- tion and abandoned building in the town. how food infrastructure is a fluctuating part way and Finnmark’s most northeastern land tain varied (and from time to time Vardø has a proud history, dramatic scenery of Vardø’s urban fabric. mass. Varanger is not a politically defined changing) harvesting in the outfields, and nature and is increasing in popularity as area, but a geographical region comprised because it enables a flexible way of life, tourist destination. of 4 complete municipalities, Vardø, Vadsø, through matauk and the ability to birget Berlevåg, Båtsfjord, and 2 partial, Deatnu (cope), and because it contributes to Tana and Unjarga Nesseby. The region and social interaction through food gifts and towns have seen many shifts in population the sharing of meals, based on locally throughout the last 65 years. Halfway harvested resources. Both the harvest- through the century in 1950 there were ing activities and their following social around 11,025 people in the Varanger region. significance, made possible through 15 years later the population peaked around mutually constitutive relations between 18,500 at the height of the Barents sea fish- animals, plants and landscape, appear ing boom. Today about 15,500 people call highly important to peoples’ local iden- Varanger peninsula home with almost half tity management and sense of of them living in Vadsø on the Varang- belonging. erfjordbotn coast. Varanger peninsula is Norway’s only Arc- This excerpt from social anthropologist tic peninsula complete with all the diverse Stine Rybråtyn’s PHD thesis revolving ecological properties of these northern biot- around a year long study of the small opes. Situated in the heart of the marine Varangerfjorden coastal community of bounty of the Barents sea, including world Unjarga-Nesseby is an excellent encapsula- renowned king crab and, undeveloped aqua- tion that reveals the deep importance of culture infrastructure, as well as a home to local food resources not only the to econ- the grazing grounds for award winning rein- omy and health of the region, but to the deer, lam, and unique local traditions of societies way of life and identity. This food preservation, preparation, and pres- description of the seasonality of experienc- entation — Varanger is at the delicious epi- ing, and dependence of people on the land- center of Norway’s arctic sustenance scape linked directly through food produc- resources. tion can be used for every community along the arctic peninsula, Varanger.

56 6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future 57 Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker When to Pick seasonality of Vardø region’s food resources JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC Climate Temperature -3.9 -3.3 0.1 2.6 5.5 7.6 8.3 10.9 8.8 3.8 0.4 -1.5 Precipitation mm 45.7 37.1 21.3 47.6 61.8 64.4 12.9 41.4 29.6 43.4 42.6 68.2 Wind m/s 7.6 9.8 9.3 5.7 5.0 5.5 4.5 4.0 5.1 5.7 8.1 7.1 Midnight Sun Polar Night Seaweed Alaria esculenta/tang Saccharina latissima Laminaria digitata Laminaria hyperborea Seaweed is available year round, spring Fucus spp. and autumn are the best harvest periods Ascophyllum nodosum Palmaria palmata Porphyra spp. Vestervagenhavn Allmenning Vegetation Cowberry/tyttebaer 2016 Loss of function, Change in programming Crowberry/krøkebaer Cloudberry/multer Blueberry/blåbaer Rhubarb/rabarbra Chives/gressløk Oysterplant/østerurt Scurvygrass/sjørburksurt During this period the ground is covered in snow Fresh produce can be processed to Seawort/strandarve reducing availability to fresh local ora extend seasonality Vetch/fuglevike Yarrow/ryllik Seaweed can be harvested earlier in spring and Drying, Freezing, Cooking, Bottling Loveage/løpstikke the autumn to supplement access to fresh produce Juniper/einer Carraway/karve Meadowsweet/mjødurt Angelica/ellkvann Garlic chives/sibirgressløk Nettle/nesle Fireweed/geitrams Birch/ellbjørkeløv Birch/skierriløv Mushroom/sopp Fish Red sh/ure Halibut/kveite Rock turbot/steinbit Cod/torsk Pollock/sei Haddock/hysa Cusk/ brosma Trout/ørret The variety of seafood available from the Barents Sea Salmon/laks ensures access to fresh protein throughout the year Arctic char/røye King crab/kongekrabbe Snow crab/snøkrabbe Mussels/blåskjell Shrimp/reker Meat Hare/hare Lamb/lam Reindeer/rein Moose/elg Shag Most of meat based protein is harvested at the Great cormorant end of the growing season before winter sets in Pink footed, Greylag, Canada, Bar-headed Goose Game and meat produce can be processed to Tued, Long tailed, golden eye, extend seasonality Goosander Duck

Mallard, Wigeon Freezing, Drying, Smoking, Cooking Willow Grouse Ptarmigan/rype Common, Great Black, Her- ring Gull Eggs Common gull Herring gull Black backed gull Traditionally bird eggs were a welcome and tasty Reinoya and Hornoya have extensive bird populations Golden eye duck food stu at the end of a long winter Today birding tourism is a fast growing industry in Varanger 58 Kittiwake6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future 59 Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker a a

b b

c c

d d

e e

f f

g g

h h

i i

j j

k k

l l

m m

n n

plaice & tobis - mørketida plaice & tobis - mørketida meadow - mørketida

scallop eld - mørketida scallop eld - mørketida bogs - mørketida

tidal zone - mørketida tidal zone - mørketida private gardens- mørketida

freshwater habitat- mørketida freshwater habitat- mørketida birch forest - mørketida

thin to no soil - mørketida thin to no soil - mørketida beach - mørketida

cultivated soil - mørketida cultivated soil - mørketida cultivated soil - mørketida Vardø Food Landscape mapping of landscape types and species general location 60 6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future 61 Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker 62 6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker Vardø’s Present photographic study of fraying urban fabric

20k m

N 10k m 40k m

250m

500m 64 6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker Vardø’s Past photgraphic study of people & food

Varanger Food Resource Economy Vardø’s Productive Landscape regional study of production ows & seasonality mapping of food resources surrounding Vardø

Varanger Cod

Torsk 20k m N

10k m 40k m

2km

1km 4km N

Vardø in Elevation

400m o set cuts through Vardø-øya 20k m N

10k m 40k m 20k m N 10k m 40k m

2k m 1k m 4k m N

When to Pick

seasonality of Vardø region’s food resources 20k m N

10k m 40k m 20k m N 10k m 40k m

66 6. Savour the Past, Taste the Future 67 Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker Vardø’s Food Industry Infrastructure 1970 the boom years

If we hunt, if we farm, even if we botanize, we are bene ting from and sharing in the accumulated experience of others…it implies we recognize other people as inhabitants of the earth as well as members of a social ode. No group sets out to create landscape…what it sets out to do is create commu- nity, and the landscape as its visible manifestation is simply the by-product of people working together, sometimes staying apart, but always recog- nizing their interdependence J.B. Jackson (”Discovering the Vernacular Landscape” 1986)

e Unjarga-Nesseby “meahcci” (out elds) is where resources are found and where harvesting takes place. What is important locally, is the ability to maintain varied (and from time to time changing) harvesting in the out elds, because it enables a exible way of life, through ,matauk and the ability to birget (cope), and because it contributes to social interaction through food gis and the sharing of meals, based on locally harvested resources. Both the harvesting activities and their following social signicance, made possible through mutually constitutive relations between animals, plants, and landscape, appear highly important to peoples` local identity management and sense of belonging. Stine Rybraaten (“This is not a wilderness. This is where we live.” Enacting nature in Unjárga-Nesseby, Northern Norway” 2013)

It is important to realize the value of what we produce care about end product, making it as good as it can be, and take pride about what we do and produce.

Jan Ivar Smuk (personal interview, 2015)

Varanger has the best produce in Norway, based on its “ e future is in teaching about food and start at the unique geographic location. beginning.”

400m N 200m 800m Niel Lupton (personal interview, 2015) Leif Haugasan (personal interview, 2016)

In 2002 the big factory premises developed in “ ere is a lack of knowledge on how to process a product so Svartnes…closed all the small places, and went people don’t dare to try.” bankrupt aer 8 months, that really destroyed the town, 350 work places were lost.

Glenn McMaster (personal interview, 2016) Ørjan Gundersen (personal interview, 2015)

“We have some of the best food in Norway, we have all the fresh sh, “Food production is part of the cultural heritage reindeer, wild sheep, lamb and all of the local herbs, and rhubarb. We of Vardo, cultural heritage can be used as a tool have to make more of it and not just send it away.” for community development.”

Tor Emil Silvertsen (personal interview, 2016) Svein Harald Holmen (personal interview, 2015)

“ ere are too few people in Finnmark for us not to “To do food you have to have the belief inside, we work together.” need people to get curious about food.”

Tor Emil Silvertsen (personal interview, 2016) Tor Emil Silvertsen (personal interview, 2016)

“Food is an important part of peoples identity, it builds on knowing your backyard and traditions.”

Svein Harald Holmen (personal interview, 2015)

We have never seen food’s true potential, because it is too big to see. But viewed laterally it emerges as something 400m N 200m 800m with phenomenal power to transform not just landscapes, but political structures, public spaces, social relationships, and cities.

Carolyn Steel (”Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives” 2013)

68 69 Brona Ann Keenan and Miles Franklin Hamaker Thomas7. JuelVardø Clemmensen Transformed

7. Vardø Transformed — Cultural Heritage and Place-Based Development

Thomas Juel Clemmensen • Photos: Martin Danais

This studio course was building on the helped the students gain an in-depth under- strong solidarity between the concepts of standing of the place but also provided heritage and that of landscape. Both are uni- them with a rewarding experience of work- fying concepts; they bring together previ- ing together with people needing and bene- ously separated aspects of the world into a fitting directly from their work. stronger whole; both sit at the interface In addition to the fieldwork, the studio between people’s perception of the world course also collaborated with Vardø and the world itself.1 Restored in organizing a mini-seminar on The overall objective was to study urban ‘conservation through transformation’ in transformation across Finnmark with Vardø Vardø with presentations from researchers as the main case. A central task was to from Norway and Denmark. The seminar explore how diverse heritage resources can also featured a small exhibition of the field- be assembled into stronger wholes, which work done by the students and was open to can guide not only future preservation and the public. restoration but more importantly, future All students produced work of high transformation in Vardø. This emphasis on quality, but some were more thought-pro- transformation stresses the importance of voking than others including the project using existing material and human ‘Unexpected Trajectories’ by Annie Breton. resources to create a ‘living heritage’ that In her project, Annie explored how aban- allows the community to evolve doned buildings and their material could be continuously. used in different architectural recycle strat- Studio work was done in close collabo- egies that support a flexible, sensitive and ration with Vardø Restored, a local non- reactive transformation of Vardø. The pro- profit initiative guided by Varanger Museum. ject demonstrates how landscape archi- Working closely together with local stake- tects through an understanding of material holders led to a unique studio experience processes can engage in urban design and with six weeks of fieldwork, which not only heritage planning in a very profound way.

1 See ”New Heritage Frontiers” (2009) by Graham Fairclough

70 7. Vardø Transformed 71 Thomas Juel Clemmensen Vardø8. TransformedStudent works:

8. Student Works: Vardø Transformed — Cultural Heritage and Place-Based Development

72 73 Revitalization of

Akie Kono Allmenning

Revitalization of Allmenning

Akie Kono

This project is about re-opening of the place ulated the identity, proud for this town, by where had been functioning as a public communication with foreigners. As mobility space in Vardø in the past. ‘Allmenning’ is a has been improved, the number of visitors name of places meaning ‘common area’ or has increased, therefore, it should be taken ‘the place for all’. In Vardø, there were many advantage for the town improvement. Allmennings in the harbor, and had been The site in this project is the Allmenning used as a boat landing space, especially for remaining the natural elements, sandy slope small boats, by local people. However, as and some rocks, in the North-East harbor, industrialization, individual fishing with where is adjusting to old wooden buildings small boat has been declined, then, Allmen- constructed before WWII. The buildings can ning has been less used and finally aban- be used as a common dinning and kitchen doned. It was the place where could make on the first floor and an accommodation for people having the relationships with the visitors on upper floors. On outside space, nature, the sea, in the past, whereas that there are basins and rocks, an old stone relationships has been weakened as Allmen- foundation and a concrete slope for pleasure ning has been abandoned. boat landing. These elements can promote To improve the quality of the life in water activities, but also can enhanced the Vardø, it is important to open spaces for connection between people and the sea everyone, in order to re-build connection perceptually. between people and the sea. Especially in Thus, revitalization of Allmenning can the North harbor, because there are a lot of contribute to gain the value of the life that abandoned buildings which has negative people can connect to the nature as well as influences on the closed residential area. the past, in the terms of a modern way and Furthermore, it is also a crucial point to con- will have positive effects for transformation The site (taken in April 2016) sider about visitors since locals can be stim- of other areas in the town.

74 Revitalization of Allmenning 75 Akie Kono Unexpected Trajectories /

AnnieVardø’s Breton Transient Heritage

Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage

Annie Breton

The development of a new heritage plan for they carry can live on through reuse of the Vardø is an opportunity to investigate the materials. different material resources found around the island and the unexpected role they By moving, storing or carefully dismantling might play in the future transformation of abandoned buildings, new resources are the city. made available and can be used within the remaining built environment. These materi- Vardø’s population has drastically declined als and building parts are collected, identi- following the downfall of the fishing industry. fied, sorted and taken care of in recircula- Although now stable, the number of inhabit- tion centers housed in old fishing factories. ants resides far below the actual capacity of In these centers, heritage becomes an the city. This depopulation resulted in the accessible, visible and collective practice. abandonment of buildings and structures of all kinds. They are still present, embedded Materials and building elements can after- in the landscape and urban fabric. They are wards be used as spare parts for other aging the physical remnants of consecutive build- structures and accessible materials for ing traditions and historic practices of the ­projects of renovation, adaptation or inven- landscape. They also carry the memories of tion of new places. Should the city grow the people that used them over time and in the future, these materials could also be the stories of big and small events that took integrated in new constructions. place within them. They are the physical manifestation of a heritage that reaches far Each intervention that saves or enhances beyond the realm of the tangible. a building or a place is valuable on its on. But when many interventions take place all over As static as they may seem, these aban- the city, their combination might well bring doned structures are in a constant state of about changes or adaptations in the urban movement, transformed by human interven- fabric: potential increased mixity and density, tion or weathered out by natural elements. as well as a strengthening of a certain his- Parts of these structures have already trav- toric character, for example. While the recir- elled around the city to take on new lives: culation of materials can benefit individual windows of abandoned houses are collected constructions, it can also allow for a flexible, to fill the openings of an old fish factory, sensitive and reactive transformation of wooden pole that once supported tons of Vardø to unfold. fish are now planted in the seabed to support docks and platforms, wooden planks of a collapsing house are gathered in piles, wait- ing to find a new use. This informal circula- tion hints towards the potential of these resources to play a role in the transformation of the city.

If left unattended because of a lack of inter- est or financial resources, abandoned build- ings slowly decay to become ruins and, even- tually, waste. The ruining of Vardø’s unique heritage might seem unavoidable, has there are far more buildings than what is needed, or what can be cared for. This project sug- gests setting these structures in motion before they reach the point of decay where potential is lost. By acting willingly, pieces of the buildings can be saved, and the heritage

76 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 77 Annie Breton 78 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 79 Annie Breton 80 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 81 Annie Breton 82 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 83 Annie Breton 84 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 85 Annie Breton 86 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 87 Annie Breton 88 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 89 Annie Breton 90 Unexpected Trajectories / Vardø’s Transient Heritage 91 Annie Breton Élisabeth BarilTending the Landscape

Tending the Landscape

Élisabeth Baril

The project explores the various ways the The step-by-step, pick-and-choose frame- landscape can contribute to the prevailing work provides guidelines for the implemen- issues of shrinking towns and heritage in tation of gardens in Vardø for the town’s the north, more specifically in the small various actors. The framework allows these fishing town of Vardø. More specifically, the actors to select the garden configuration project examines the landscape of the gar- and components they wish to have, while den, in the context of northern Norway. also guiding them in the feasability of each option. By providing a variety of options, the The project began with a series of on-site framework is adaptable to the different con- field studies, interviews and research on the straints, needs, and transformations of landscape of Vardø and its heritage — Vardø over time, while benefiting the town namely, on the former uses and spatial qual- socially, environmentally, and even ities of the land, as well as the role of the esthetically. garden in the lives of Vardø’s inhabitants. Photographs and maps also revealed an intesting potential in the landscape — in its interstices. As a result of these studies, a conceptual framework for the preservation, restoration and transformation of the land- scape was imagined — a how-to guide for the continued development of the inter- stices as gardens.

92 Tending the Landscape 93 Élisabeth Baril 94 Tending the Landscape 95 Élisabeth Baril Uncovering and Discovering Rethinking cultural heritage

Jérômemanagement Codère in Vardø

Uncovering and Discovering Rethinking cultural heritage management in Vardø

Jérôme Codère

Vardø is going through a phase of renewal, Following this idea, the first question trying many restoration projects are being dev­ to be answered by this project is: What to do eloped and people are open to innovative with the empty buildings left standing? As ideas to put forward and reclaim their city. it is now, the options regarding abandoned The main problem now with all the vacant decaying buildings are the following: they constructions is that the city doesn’t have are restored, left to decay or demolished. In the means to restore and maintain all of Vardø, however, very few infrastructures them, nor should they. With the slow regen- are removed, considering the cultural value. eration of the community and no big demo- However, in many ways, leaving them to graphic growth in sight, it is vital that the weathering is the equivalent of a slow buildings be carefully chosen based of their removal of the building, they will at some cultural heritage value, but also based on point collapse and have to be removed. their uses once restored. This is basically what is being done by the municipality and organisations such as Vardø Restored.

96 Uncovering and Discovering Rethinking cultural heritage management in Vardø 97 Jérôme Codère 98 Uncovering and Discovering Rethinking cultural heritage management in Vardø 99 Jérôme Codère Heidi Marja KomonenHarbour(ing) History

Harbour(ing) History

Heidi Marja Komonen

The project is looking at how the revitalisa- These places have a lot of history and are tion of line fishing in Vardø can help to take valuable for keeping the cultural heritage in care of the cultural heritage and how it can Vardø. The large amount of fish outside create different positive outcomes, both for Vardø makes it possible to keep up these the tourist industry and creating jobs. This traditions, while it will also benefit the fish- is done through looking at the history of ermen economically. fishing, especially line fishing in Vardø and The tourism in Vardø is growing, and how Vardø is one of the best places in more and more people see the value of com- ­Norway to use line because of its very rich ing to the most eastern city of Norway. The fishing grounds situated close to the town. project looks at connecting the tourism This makes it possible to focus on the quality industry on to the fishing industry, espe- more than quantity, which in this case will cially the line fishing. This will give the tour- reflect positively back on the fishermen ists an opportunity to experience a histori- because they are able to ask more money for cal way of how the fishing was done and it the fish they catch. will also reactivate some of the old buildings The project aims to reactivate the use that today are falling apart. It will create an of the hand lining. Vardø has many facilities extraordinary ordinary experience for the that has the opportunity to become places tourists. where people can work with preparing lines.

100 101 Heidi Marja Komonen 2

HARBOUR(ING) HISTORY Heidi Marja Komonen The project is looking at how the revitalisation of line fishing in Vardø can help to take care of the cultural heritage and how it can create different positive outcomes, both for the tourist industry and creating jobs. This is done through looking at the history of fishing, especially line fishing in Vardø and how Vardø is one of the best places in Norway to use line because of its very rich fishing grounds situated close to the town. This makes it possible to focus on the quality more than quantity, which in this case will reflect positively back on the fishermen because they are able to ask more money for the fish they catch. The project aims to reactivate the use of the hand lining. Vardø has many facili- ties that has the opportunity to become places where people can work with preparing lines. These places have a lot of history and are valuable for keeping the cultural heritage in Vardø. The large amount of fish outside Vardø makes it possible to keep up these traditions, while it will also benefit the fishermen economically. The tourism in Vardø is growing, and more and more people see the value of coming to the most eastern city of Norway. The project looks at connecting the tourism industry on to the fishing industry, especially the line fishing. This will give the tourists an opportunity to experience a historical way of how the fish- ing was done and it will also reactivate some of the old buildings that today are falling apart. It will create an extraordinary ordinary experience for the tourists. VARDØ HARBOUR TWO SITES; Design approach; Site one and two

3

DESIGN APPROACH; SITE ONE AND TWO

3

DESIGN APPROACH; SITE ONE AND TWO Eastern breakwater

Line fishing has been used in East Finnmark sins the 1700s The whale building

SiteSite one;one; building building and approach and DiagramDiagram showing showing view Section and illustration looking through the Section and illustra- approach view space; what the tourist experiences tion looking through the space; what the Site one; building and Diagram showing tourist Section and illustra- approach view experiences tion looking through the space; what the tourist Observationexperiences and view Section; connecting tourism and point fishing activities Observation and view Section; connecting tourism and point fishing activities

fishermen view linefishing

tourist

view

Organising space; connecting Observation and Section; connecting tourism and inside and outside view point fishing activities

102 Harbour(ing) History 103 Heidi Marja Komonen Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampe- 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care vold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen through the Vardø HUB

9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB

Andrew Morrison, Maria Bertheussen Skrydstrup, ­Janike Kampevold Larsen & Angeliki Dimaki-Adolfsen • Photos: Andrew­ Morrison

This essay, enunciated through ethno- ject has taken several years to shape in an graphic and expository writings and contex- ongoing dialogue between a diversity of par- tual images, presents aspects of an unfold- ticipants as we show in the text below. It has ing process of dialogue between Future been important to take time to understand North and Vardø Restored projects. It quite what the HUB might be as its aims and focuses on the co-creation of the develop- activities and long term survival depends on ment over a period of four years of the for- it being suited to local conditions and to it mer Vardø Grand Hotel into an emerging being fuelled by real interests and needs. ‘cultural hub’. Named the Vardø HUB in 2017, For us this was about developing a wider this site is projected as a venue for motivat- ‘culture of care’. That is shaping a place for ing and supporting sustainable local Arctic cultural engagement and exchange in which futures. It’s the outcome of a slow, delicate participants — local permanent inhabitants and, at times laborious, processes of shap- of Vardø and short and longer term visitors. ing a wider co-design of cultural care suited to the context and its potential futures. Since the start of the Future North research project, its members have been welcomed * into community initiated and enacted activ- ities by the Vardø Restored project (http:// How might a community-driven exploratory vardorestored.com/en). Vardø Restored has initiative on cultural innovation for sustaina- gone about reviving while also reinventing ble future arctic living be put together and the uses of numerous buildings across the developed? In what ways might partnering town as part of a move to reinvigorate the of local citizens’ expertise and that of exter- cultural character of the town that since the nal design contributors be used to support 1980s has struggled to survive the loss of its local cultural expression and its ongoing life? core economic production when northern What kind of space might be designed fishing was formally restricted to secure for a diversity of uses and events, for local future stocks. One of these buildings is the discussion, community engagement, a vari- former Vardø Hotel owned by Bjørn and ety of events, a mix of spaces for workshops, Britt Bertheussen. They have been painstak- seminars and courses, and short and long ingly working on its revival as can be heard term residencies and visitors? How might a in an online video from the project site in cultural hub be built from the bottom-up which Bjørn Bertheussen talks about the and meet interests and needs? renovation process. (http://vardorestored. com/en/project/grand-hotel/) Where might base funding be secured and how might this be achieved against the * background of more business oriented ‘social entrepreneurship’ and innovation pro- Our approach has been arrived at through grammes? Might there be an emergent negotiation and design-led scenarios that practice and experience that can offer a have sought to connect the needs and transformation model for other communi- expertise of local owners and citizens with ties and coastal towns in northern Norway? the perspectives and inputs of designer-re- searchers. On one hand is a community * driven revitalisation initiative based in the materialities of yesterday and today. On the These are the key questions we have dis- other hand, there’s a transdisciplinary cussed in the development of what has research project concerned with potentiality come to be the Vardø HUB project. The pro- and projection of possible futures. However,

104 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 105 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen (e.g. Ehn et al. 2014) drive change and not policies alone and where a mix of events and outcomes will serve to motivate and drive processes of ongoing transformation in ‘rethinking repair’ (Jackson, 2014) for arctic architectures (Hemmersam 2016) that are connected to culture and communication. These though need considerable planning and support, just as much as deep motiva- tion and agile responses to emerging needs and demands. They would need to engage with and perhaps critique some of the approaches to social innovation and entre- preneurship (e.g. Bornstein, 2007; Brassett, 2016). And they would need to look into the emergence of dynamic, cultural approaches to the burgeoning field of Service Design (Meroni & Sangiorini, 2011; Matthews, 2014; Matthews, 2017), mindful of connecting, not separating, communities, culture and partic- ipatory tools and methods (e.g. Light & Akama, 2012). Important too would be We climb the internal staircase up into the approaches to selecting and mixing design large unfinished third floor and marvel at tools and research techniques in the context the views of the towns two harbours. Maria of social innovation (e.g. Hillgren et al. 2011). mentions that the family have thought about converting this into apartments, or * hotel rooms. Later we discuss this as a space for 14 self-service Airbnb-like bed- Autumn 2013. Members of the Future North rooms with shared bathrooms and a central project visit Vardø and connect with key kitchen. Then we climb a ladder and rickety partners in Vardø Restored. We learn of their staircase to the top floor with its eight attic lively processes of cultural and infrastruc- windows, each with a magnificent view. tural revival in which processes of collabora- Apartments, studios, a home for the family, tion and mapping were used in a workshop says Maria wistfully, laughing and looking at at the hotel to chart ways forward for cul- us all. But we don’t really know what to do. tural regeneration of the town. Svein Harald local participants are long term residents, north (Sheppard et al., 2017), citizen and Holmen, leader of the project, and Maria * while the researchers have been itinerant civic engagement, but also in a futures Bertheussen, one member of the owner visitors. Building connections and trust took view (Davies et al., 2012; Appadurai, family of The Grand Hotel, take us on a tour January 2014. A shared concern has been time to gradually and carefully land on the 2013). And a mix of methods are needed of the town and the project’s sites of trans- how to make and to go about making deci- notion of a hub as suited to the hotel, to find too, such as collaborative ethnography formation, many completed. We are led to sions about the future of more than merely this term and to locate in social and cultural (e.g. Lassiter 2005) and acts of doing the front steps of The Grand and are taken the edifice of the hotel. Whose arctic futures framework for a community centred future sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009) in a on a tour of its four floors. are at stake in this small town has always and one we could place within the existing wider co-design and participatory design been at the forefront of our discussions. We approaches to business oriented ‘social frame (Simonsen & Robertson, 2015). Roughly half of the ground floor has been have been interested to develop what we innovation’. In summary, our shared and completed, two rooms with new concrete see as a culture of care suited to a specific growing interest has to be to find ways to But these would need to be seen as operat- floors and walling, a large and immovable small arctic island town setting and to its develop an actual place and a model for pro- ing in a concert of care, drawing on other safe from earlier use as a bank is highly social-material and imaginative cultural viding means to cultural expression and inquiries into ‘enacting care through com- present. We move up the front staircase, resources. But we have wanted from early in community exchange, whether that be a munities of makers (Toombs 2015) and and later exit from the rear one, to the first our discussions to reach beyond obvious local food making interest group on ‘found notions of makers of care in a DIY citizen- floor that has potential to be a seminar choices that are simply a matter of income foods’ or a series of visitors to the proposed ship view (Hargreaves & Hartley 2016; Ratto space or offices, according to Maria. The generation with the building being dis- rooms and meeting services. et al., 2014) and ‘matters of care’ (Puig de la Vardø Restored project earlier used the sec- tanced from the community. Bellacasa, 2017) that are to do with the ond floor of The Grand to run a workshop on assemblies of people and neglected things its processes and relations to the town and * So we spend time looking into related (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011; Denis & Pointille, wider community. We see the sketches, pro- frameworks, views, concepts and prac- 2015) and enacting care in practice (Mol et totypes processes and outcomes of the What has been special about questions as to tices. There is a need to explore and draw al., 2010). These would take place in the workshop on boards still standing in the how to transform The Grand — whether into from a mix of perspectives: from cultural wider context of engaging with emerging large space, its only inhabitants, precursors a hotel or another commercial venue or into mapping informed from landscape (e.g. discourses and practices of ‘designing for of a possible future. There has been interest a wholly different entity — has been that it is Cosgrove, 2008; Corner & Bick Hirsch, social innovation’ (e.g. Manzini, 2015). shown in discussion with some local firmly in the hands of its family owners, the 2014; Doherty & Waldheim, 2016) and the businesses. Bertheussens, since the 1970s. The video digital (e.g. Panofsky & Kellett, 2015), As a venue for dialogue and for shared mak- material on the Vardo Restored site give a from space specific arctic urbanism ing, the HUB would have a DIY, active citizen strong sense of pride. (Hemmersam & Harbø, 2016) and per- centred logic (Gauntlett, 2011; Goldsmith et spectives on ‘many mappings’ of the far al., 2010), where activities of making futures

106 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 107 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen Maria grew up in Vardø, and knows the city contribute — master’s students from as well as anyone, or more, having an inter- ­Norway and ­Canada, students, designers, est for history, and a father who is a story- architects, story tellers, ethnographers, teller. Her husband Rasmus, have been one landscape theorists and teachers to men- of the most important members of Vardø tion a few. Restored. His skills a restoration carpenter have been seminal to the work that has Having Vardø Restored as an ongoing and been done on several properties in town. ambitious and aspirational framework, Having a family that is itself needing to work based on local organising and expertise, out its own internal decisions and long term provided Future North as a project as whole goals for the grand. These are matters that with a robust platform and a strong point of have taken time and energy and all the while entry to the town. While this was an invita- during the process of restoring the buildings tion, it was done so with criticality and with exterior, then gradually its interior. Maria’s expectations that the project would also father has worked tirelessly to see the pro- indirectly and directly bring new expertise ject through, having also restored his own and experience to Vardø and not only itself family home, proudly a predecessor to the follow a model of extraction of cultural entire Vardø Restored project. But the hotel knowledge and insight for researchers and is also being revived for a potentially differ- students. ent future, and the family manage to hold it open, the future that is! Occasionally they Field work therefore became a primary use the venue for workshops such as the means of engagement. The new programme one held by the Vardø Restored project for in Landscape Architecure between AHO and its early mapping of the city and the project the University of Tromsø brought a spread and processes for the regenerations. The of students and activities to the town. There size of the hotel is daunting for a family and workshops and classes were connected to a small town to tackle. Vardø Restored and to the defined and emergent needs of the town as changing * policies concerning development ensued, principally no oil and gas field extraction Field work needs humility by researchers and no successful use of the gigantic new towards their hosts. Yet it needs all to see in harbour on the mainland opposite the island. a collaborative ethnographically positioned inquiry that local interests may also need * unpacking and questioning to venture into As expressed by numerous participants in mous domain to another … if we unite all performative and dynamic futures. This is Vardø is a town with a long, vibrant culture the Vardø Restored website, one of the main these domains as participants in the myriad so that they may reach beyond local hori- and successful economy. In its heyday at challenges for the town has been to reassert subnetworks of an ecosocial system, we can zons. They may not yet be visible and trans- the start of the 20th century Vardø was a its cultural core and to restore a sense of give detailed accounts of their interdepend- latable form within local contexts. Materials rich mercantile centre for fishing and pride and engagement for the local commu- encies and the self-organising dynamics of and means prompted from elsewhere may regional trade. It has a longer political and nity. This is very much to do with working this complex system.’ be needed that would need to be repur- cultural history: there is evidence of iron with the materialities of the context and posed or positioned to context and situated age Samì settlements, the first church was setting, where cultural heritage, daily work But how are we to translate this into a pro- local practices. These are delicate and diffi- built in 1307 and a stone and earth walled and social practices and projections of cess over time that will lead to reasoned and cult processes and need negotiation and fortress from the 14th century — part of the future developments are entangled. Yet this seasoned choices that are economically and delegation, they require connecting differ- Norwegian kingdom, later visited by King increasingly needs to be seen in relation to communicatively sustaibable for the Ber- ent view points and they demand a shared Christian IV of Denmark-Norway in 1599 to the town’s growing identity as a tourist tuessen family and for the potential reconfi- interest to look forwards to a larger picture claim to the area in the face of Russian venue and related services and Service gutation of the hotel to a Hub for a variety of that may not yet be possible to demarcate expansion — has been successively rebuilt Design potential, alongside its part in strate- activities and self organsing future dynam- clearly, again and again, but that over time and today is a museum. The island has gic roles in military surveillance and mari- ics. Design offers many such means but its becomes clearer through processes of become a venue for tourism and indeed for time navigation, such that the digital is own dynamics and elaborations would need sketching and proposing, all a type of pro- education and research residencies and ever-present too. Over the past two decades explaining, demonstrating, offering and jection that is abductive and associative not projects such as ours. this small island community has increas- come consolidation…. The speculative and necessarily driven by deductive or inductive ingly been ‘connected’: to the mainland by a also systems-service aspects of Design too logics and certainties as models of road tunnel, supported by a small airport would need to be asserted as both analytical destinations. linked to the national network, and visited and developmental resources, part of a daily by the coastal supply and cruise ship wider reflexive knowledge building practice How then does a community with a diversity the Hurtigruten. that funders seemed not to … anticipate. of stakeholders come to be understood and how do the owners of one large venue come There is a diversity of interests in the town * to see their possession as a shared resource that centre on the hotel as a social and cul- and site for generating interest with income, tural venue. Andrew is reminded of his old Over several years between the projects activity with accountability? How to may collegue and friend Jay Lemke who has been and their members we have built up close designer-researchers engage in such pro- motivated to see how mediated meaning working relationships and developed friend- cesses without respecting local knowledge making is realised througits many actors. ships. We’ve arrived at what we hope will and needs, yet offer alternative to ‘business Lemke (1998: 286) suggests that ‘Instead of continue to be the practice of ‘a design cen- as usual’. And how might a variety of visitors theorising causal relations from one autono- tred ­culture of care’ that will help realise

108 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 109 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen the ongoing transformation of a former and design fields, we presented some of the that never freezes and thinks of discussions possible futures for the hotel and other local hotel to a ‘cultural hub’ and not merely one contexts and dynamics of this negotiation of possible other options with the Future services to support and develop. of entrepreneurial innovation. This design by way of exchanges and interactions North team but remains confused. view on cultures of care acknowledges that between the owners of a large building and we are involved in shaping shared futures a related local urban regeneration project * and that select choices need to be arrived and design orientations of a research project at after the processes of posing and pitch- into cultural landscapes of the future arctic. Pragmatically, these consequences are ing and proecting various options — formal, embedded in process of change and cau- open neded, playful even — that is typical * tious choices and moves into what is emer- to design based development and inquiry. gent and prospective, not only given and This too needs to be about design based Through collaboration and access to diverse known, characterised by engaging flexibly futures, where the acts of desinging are expertise and experience such an approach and adaptively with unscripted and unpre- themselves a means to negotiating options to urban regeneration will hopefully cultur- dicted developments that have been part of and contexts — but to also extend these ally enrich and enchant a community in the learning to together design not just a ‘Make- into unexpected, unforseen and plausible face of undeniable rapid change in the b&b’ or a ‘maker-tel’ (as we began to call it paths to follow. ­Arctic (Arbo et al., 2013). Importantly, as we instead of a hotel), but to find a form and experienced in the past five years, this future that is not merely care-ful but full of For the owners of such a hotel this has natu- change that spans altered polar ‘develop- care. By this we mean that the design for rally seemed too indistinct, too intangible ment’ policies, shifting oil prices and cultural futures, located in the past and and far to undefined. Then, as we have con- changes in exploration strategies and enacted in the present, might be generated tinud a process of their suggesting their investment and not least the physical and through and around a building for and the own options, influenced by local conditions related economic effects of climate change. building of a culture of care. This is a culture and expressions of interest from within the In the context of such change, culture is that is driven by interests, activities, events, town, these two processes have gradually often not a core topic of care and has to participants and processes of cultural mak- become inter-twined. A different set of pos- fight for its place alongside the ideologies of ing and exchange that are dynamic and sible directions and choices have emerged geo-politics and the profit driven forces of responsive, prospective and dynamic. in what has become a design rich space for resource extraction. workshops, exchanges of other similar set- * Later in Oslo, Andrew discusses the poten- tings and a spread of types of engagement * tial of a service design connection to the and activity. March 2016, the exterior of the property has hotel and tourism with his AHO colleague been wholly restored. By now Future North Berit Lindqvister. It turns out Berit has has visited on numerous occasions with already run a studio with master’s students teams of students and researchers and on in service design into the Hurtigruten each occasion we have visited and dis- coastal ferry service that moves volumes of cussed The Grand. The family has worked tourists and goods up and down the coast tirelessly to complete the external work. between Bergen and Kirkenes, stopping Inside the interiors are also being trans- daily in Vardø at 1600 for an hour. On a sub- formed. Step by step. Room by room. The sequent visit to Vardø, Andrew and fellow ground floor has been changed: a concrete travellers meet the manager of the hotel on floor has been completed and a wooden the Hurtigruten one sunny afternoon as he archway installed, the space seems quieter stands resplendent in his uniform beside the and larger. Maria has held several events in large vessel. We discuss The Grand, his new the space. position for the first time managing a hotel off shore, and the possibility of connecting * the two. Hanging about on the quayside and showing our new visitor Heather Moore Matters of care, that care matters. We have February 2015. Maria stands in the hotel. Mid April 2016. Andrew and Janike of Future about the town has turned out well. Follow- written up an academic book chapter on She has woken up early and taken a walk North make another visit to Vardø and to ing through on connections is a task that this concerning the Vardø HUB (Morrison et over from her current home to think about specifically move into exploring design cen- will take well into 2017 we anticipate. al, in press 2018). But what are we to make what to do with the building. She stands tred scenarios and options for repurposing of this notion of care? For Puig de la Bellac- looking out over the sea, facing the north the hotel into what we loosely pitch as a We find examples of other Norwegian initia- asa (2011: 100): pole. The town has changed a great deal in kind of maker space. This is a critical visit as tives not only international ones. It is impor- her own lifetime. She feels a responsibility we have brought with us three adjunct par- tant to offer evidence of how others have The notion of ‘matters of care’ is a prop- to her family and to the community, the ticipants — Angeliki Dimaki-Adolfsen, Jonas framed and marketed their initiatives as osition to think with. Rather than indicat- hotel standing empty for all to see. She has Adolfsen and Heather Moore from The hubs. However, as we already anticipate, ing a method to unveil what matters of been discussing its future with her father. Shape of Things in Berlin (http://theshape­ looking into a designing for futures that are fact are, it suggests we make of them Should it be a hotel again with an investor ofthings.de/team-2/) — who have volun- care-ful, we see that many of these are what is needed to generate more caring that will drive a process perhaps in a very teered their interest and expertise. The arranged around notions of social relationships. It is not so much a motion commercial direction? Perhaps a series of notion of the hotel being a maker space, one entrepreneurship. that explains the construction of things apartments would be the fastest way to enlivened by shared interests and a logic of than a suggestion on how those who occupy the building and turn a profit but unpaid contributions is very much as the * study things can participate in their pos- where’s that money to come from? And now centre of working frugally, carefully and yet sible becomings. there is interest that these be taken up by drawing on strong skills and wide experi- Late April 2016. In Oslo, we open photo- the staff of the Globus II radar military intel- ence. On this visit, familiarisation with the graphs and look at the drawings of the As a team of authors representing the own- ligence monitoring station that looms over town and its tourist sites and services is a building Jonas has taken back with him to ers and community and diverse academic the island. Maria looks out over the ocean key element as tourism is one of the main work up new ones showing potential uses

110 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 111 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen and scenarios. In Vardø, Maria and her fam- venue for diverse activities and not driven active proponets of change to motivating May 2016. Angeliki and Andrew meet up ily and members of Vardø Restored fre- by developing training or support for busi- and realising social change through entre- twice in the trendy Tøyen Torget (http://ost- quently visit the hotel and rethink its possi- nesses. Maria and Andrew discuss this on preneurship and innovation (e.g. Bornstein, kantliv.no/category/toyen/toyen-torg/), a ble uses. The shell of the building is part of the phone. There’s a long pause at one point. 2007), According to Martin and Osberg recently revitalised 1960s inner city square the difficulty of shaping its future genera- Then Maria says she does not want to ‘run a (2015: 5–23), with extensive experience in in the east of central Oslo. We have chosen tive uses: it is so large and its transforma- hotel’. We laugh and admit that we have business, services and systems, we may to meet here to place ourselves in a sensory tion will be costly. It is essential that a finally landed on not just an innovation usefully see three types of social engage- ethnographic mode of inquiry (Pink, 2009) staged and careful process of development, space for commerce, though it has to have ment. They argue that social service provid- concerning the aesthetics, interior and mindful of constraints and the very pressing its place, but a cultural innovation hub that ers work directly for change yet leave an event design apparent in two new cafés that demands on a few key actors who are needs to be fuelled and nurtured by existing system in place while social activ- provide venues for a variety of services and already entangled in other projects, travel impulses: artistic, creative, community, col- ists who may work more indirectly to trans- events. Postkontoret (http://pkontoret.no) and day jobs be core to this. lective, exploratory and cultural. form given settings and practices, often is a large bar and restaurant café inde- through legal means. Social entrepreneur- pendently owned that changes its functions * ship, in contrast, works directly for change across the day and night, also like the hotel and seeks to alter an existing system into a in Vardø it has an old safe that serves as a Andrew suggests he follow up possibilities preferred one that makes for effective cosy lounge. Norð og natt (http://www.nor- with Innovation Norway, spurred on by a change, often with a fair measure of advo- doslo.no/restaurantogcocktailbar/) is part phone call with Maria, who knows how they cacy work. For these authors, the stages of of a chain of concerns that offer a mix of work in the region and has been in touch transformation may be summarised as: food and spaces across the country, and in with them on several occasions. They dis- understand, envision, build, and scale. this instance with ecological and ‘traditional’ cuss the recent maker space facilities sup- food types and on site production part of its ported by Innovation Norway in the Tivoli in Martin and Osberg offer a framework for culturally framed Norwegian identity. the larger town of Kirkenes near the border understanding how successful social entre- with Russia. We discuss the maker ethics preneurs actually go about producing trans- * and aesthetics of our own Hub quite sure its formative change. There are four key stages: not a centre for training or for 3D printing in understanding the world; envisioning a new a fab lab tradition. Andrew’s been collabo- future; building a model for change; and rating at AHO with Additive Manufacturing scaling the solution. In summary, social research so he is familiar with its DIY and entrepreneurship characterises acts of lead- regenerative modes of design and knowing ership that generate public benefit (Marin & (Morrison, 2017). Using making as a practice Roseberg, 2015: 1). and thinking through being able to make an alternate space in the town are recurring For us it’s a matter of co-designing a venue themes in our conversations. Yet we are for multiple activities that will suit the given making a space for cultural engagement. and emerging needs of a variety of stake- Often we have recalled the community cen- holders, commercial, community, civic, tres, art collectives and cultural centres that tourists and researchers, students and art- have been a part of wider social democratic ists who are themselves active civic entre- Angeliki and Andrew spend hours trawling initiatives in many countries, notably Britain preneurs who may ‘ignite community net- the Web looking for cultural hubs that pro- and Scandinavia. works for good’ (Goldsmith et al. 2010) vide us — and most importantly the team in Vardø — with elements from different exam- In the early autumn of 2016 Andrew visits * ples of what we have been suggesting. Its colleagues in the Future North project in become increasingly important for Maria Tromsø and has a meeting with Merete March 2016. We decide its Impulse not * and her husband Rasmus to build their own Susan Andersen and Ingrid Mathisen at Impact that is our alternate term. An clearer concept of what we have been show- Innovation Norway (Arctic). He and Maria impulse for cultural expression, production Later in June, Andrew takes Dagny Stuedahl, ing and gently suggesting. We have moved have followed up leads from Finnmark and and articulation in many forms. Maria’s a design professor at the Oslo and Akershus into a different phase in conceptualising the Maria’s contacts in Vadsø, Vardø’s nearest laughter rings out, ‘Is that what we are up University College of Applied Sciences, and hotel as a hub. We use our internal Facebook neighbouring town, and Andrew discussed to?’ ‘There’s a pulse’, quips Andrew. Influ- Laurene Vaughan, co-editor of the book on group to exchange ideas both ways. Andrew interaction and service design, tourism and enced by other hubs and needing to differ- design and care there for lunch to discuss and Maria talk on the phone, and Janike is innovation business strategies with Berit entiate ours we land on a name change from designing for care. Both venues in Tøyen­ also in the loop, talking with Maria and offer- Lindqvister. The meeting with Innovation Vardø Hotel to Impulse Hub. It’s not long torget deliberately mark out their identity ing suggestions and importantly questions Norway goes well; it is supportive and open, until we simply change hotel to hub and through interior design that appears to about feasibility that back channel Maria’s and the two colleagues there are open to drop the word impulse and let the activity- make use of second hand furniture, roughly already expressed concerns about already ideas for the future on discussing cultural and event-oriented character of our design crafted and seemingly DIY maker-generated holding down a full-time job at the museum views, but it is clear that seed funding and work their way into action. Well, we hope counters and components. Angeliki and and being a partner to Rasmus travelling up its possible extension into a larger project is this is possible and we spend long Andrew discuss these elements on site too and down from his formal job as master res- dedicated to social entrepreneurship and a Whatsapp calls discussing how to use the and what we might convey of this trend to toration carpenter for Trondheim cathedral, specific development of business. sparse funds at hand, to secure others and our colleagues — and now friends — in Vardø. and mother to their two girls in Vardø. to commence a process that will not only * bootstrap the hub into a self-generating * It’s increasingly clear to us that the Vardø space but engage others to do so. HUB is a mixed cultural concept built Social entrepreneurship has matured in the November 2016. It’s a cold weekday morning around expression and articulation, with a past two decades, drawing on earlier * and Jonas, Angeliki, and Andrew meet with blend of uses connected to the creative sec- notions of patronage, social good, benevlo- Ole Jørn Myklebust at Sentralen in down- tor and industries. For us, at its heart it’s a ent capitalists and change agents who are town Oslo. Jonas and Ole Jørn are old

112 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 113 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen friends and we are able to talk openly about December 2016. Andrew and Angeliki need communities such as Vardø experience quented by thousands of birders and sup- this large scale commercially supported ini- to meet to discuss the content and process the future. ported by the excellent architectural office tiative into a social innovation hub in the of the project and the joint book chapter on biotope (http://www.biotope.no/p/birding-­ heart of the city. design and care. We choose yet another And its fish that are the key to this future, varanger.html) specialising in bird watching venue that is a mixed use space in central argues the group, across the coasts and seas and birding. Its leader Tormod Amundsen Promoted on its website as ‘From savings Oslo. Kulturhuset (http://www.kulturhuseti- of Norway. Already the mesh of meaning has been instrumental in bringing new hides bank to cultural think tank’, Sentralen offers oslo.no/about-us/) aims to provide an inclu- making is apparent, past, present and and shelters to bird watchers but new archi- (http://www.sentralen.no/en/thehouse/byg- sive cultural space for new collaborations futures intertwined. The fish — the people — tecture of wonderful character and quality. gets-historie). Sentralen opened its doors in and forms of engaging expression respectful the politicians. Moves to privatisation by the the current location in February 2016. Sup- of tradition between artists, cultural workers current government. What is the fishing There are more than enough birders visiting ported by Sparebank, Sentralen is based on and the wider public. It’s another part of industry to Norway? Its older than oil and Vardø to support the HUB. There are rooms collaborative experience, surveys and the hybrid design we are sketching. But the gas. The fish is a replenishable resource, and for meetings and photo sharing evenings. design that indicated a need in Oslo for an physical building is to be demolished soon is key to upholding communities along the And then there is the Hurtigruten that visits open space for meeting and cultural prac- for a city centre high-rise development. coast, communities that have been built on daily, edging into the harbour and its pas- tices as well as a providing ‘a centre for the fishing industry. sengers wander about the town for an hour innovators working on finding new solutions * and disappear into the Arctic Ocean, cam- for dealing with social challenges.’ As can be * era and tablet and long lenses all untapped seen online, the centre’s website offers a January 2017. Andrew visits Vardø again to as visitors for layovers on the island ready to variety of activities and event centred par- discus the future of the HUB with Maria, September is election time. Kystopprøret catch the next boats out the next day with ticipation, with offices and workspaces for Rasmus and Svein Harald. They show him gains momentum and protests. On 7 Sep- the museum, monument and fort unvisited hire. The seven storey building is reflected the completed kitchen, the office of the tember an 8x8 m big banner is set up by the otherwise. The birders have hatched a plan… the extent of offerings and reporting on the small events company that the municipality SALT project near the Norwegian Opera. It website so that connections between physi- suggested move in and have funded some includes a highly visible symbol of opposition * cal spaces, innovation, community and changes. There are many different partner- adopted by Kystopprøret 2017 that has especially youth centred participation are ings involved it turns out and according to already been painted onto the most central Early Seprember 2017. Janike has begun her co-present, alongside a café and more for- Maria, the town’s mayor has begun to see wall of the Grand Hotel building. The use sabbatical and is bent upon writing. Angeliki mal restaurant. the ramifications of this slow transformation. of the symbol starts to be taken up along is busy with her doctoral studies in her pro- the coast. gramme in Goteborg. Maria is back at work Sentralen provided us with a fully function- It’s important to bear this in mind as the and her children in school again in Vardø. ing social innovation venue to visit and to town has relatively recently opened a 200 The protest begins to gather interest from Andrew is preparing for the Anticipation think with and through in considering a seat stage/auditorium with collapsible seats many political parties and leads to action: 2017 conference in London and a paper on rather differently located and constituted and a 25 m indoor heated swimming pool as the Fisheries Minister Sandberg withdraws culture, design and future Arctics. October culturally framed possible space in the far part of its community building and public the government’s message about the duty 8–12 Janike visits Vardø, does the initial north of the country. This is a very different services. The HUB is then well placed to system for trawlers from coverage in the shaping of the upcoming joint seminar with space, away from the vibrant cultural diver- access these facilities and to complement Parliament. Vardø Restored in November, and spends sity and extensive capital city based exper- them. When we visited them on a prior several afternoons with Maria where they tise and volume of participants. What might travel, a meeting of the Norwegian Labour In early October, the former Minister of plan how the HUB may be featured in the a designing a culture of care mean when party is in progress in the auditorium; we are ­Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, now leader event. Maria wants to use the opportunity scaled to the locality of Vardø and to a prop- given an extensive tour of the pool, techni- of the Labour Party, visits Vardø and the to launch the Vardø HUB for the town and to erty owned by its inhabitants not a leading cal workings, and gym/yoga/exercise studio. organisation holds a two hour meeting with make connections to the place and its his- bank intent on supporting a form of core him in the Vardø Hub, in the refurbished tory as well as to the future and its possible urban social capital investment? What sort Again, it seems to Angeliki and Andrew that kitchen and meeting room. Surely the HUB and projected potentials. The one is known of values of care might we need to ensure connecting people is what Vardø Restored is alive and kicking, and ideas are not just and valued, the other is emergent and and enact, inspired by Sentralen and its and the Vardø HUB might be doing best. But slapping about like fish out of water? uncertain. She wants the decision-making many participative and public activities and in the future we will also need to build an process regarding the future of the hotel open platforms for engagement? online presence, a reliable booking system According to the Facebook site, ‘The mes- to be transparent, for inhabitant to be able and news facilities as part of the project’s sage is clear: the fish belong to the com­ to influence her choices. The mixed venue setting of Sentralen in website. A mesh of Service, Systems and munity. We will live by what the sea gives. many respects mirrored on a much larger Interaction Design. We love our coastal community. We have Again, they go over and discuss possible and city central scale, what we had already will and brio. We’re not giving up!’ solutions for the four storey building. Now, conceptualised in Vardø. It encouraged us * the leader of Biotope, Tormod, has been to think further into our already sketched Yet another activity has come to be centred clear about needing apartments for the event and activity based conceptualisation It is a demanding semester for everyone, on the HUB whose name has not yet formally many young architects who come to Vardø of how to care for cultural processes and Janike visits Vardø in February if only to been labelled on the exterior of the building… to work for him for a few months, a year, interaction through events being framed keep communication moving. Then its April several years. Tormod needs accommoda- and carried through by a diversity of partici- already. She tries again in May, and as calen- * tion now, and urges Maria to think about pants, such a seminar by the regional dar tightens she is invited to Maria’s daugh- this as she ponders the future of the hotel. museum, a visual exhibition by a research ters confirmation, as in the end this seems This summer the latest fad in real time She also want to engage the local youth in a project, a community based planning pro- to be the only available weekend. Much has streaming continues in Norway. From the discussion whether they would like to con- cess and an evening sharing knowledge of been going on locally around arranging Hurtigruten to trains to knitting. Now its tribute converting the hotel basement into a found and foraged food production. Kystopprøret that’s launched in Vardø in bird life. NRK have set up their cameras on club. She used it herself when she was April 2017. Maria is an active member. Hornøya (https://www.nrk.no/fuglefjellet-­ young, to arrange pop-up parties. * There’s a lively Facebook site and postings 1.12984757?loc=en). The stream shows the form a team of ten or so. It’s a non-party vibrant life of the island, but doesn’t men- Monday night, 13 November. Following up political programme is motivated to develop tion it is just off Vardø, close by the main on Maria and Janike’s talks, Maria and dialogue with national politicians about how harbour. Teeming with birds, Vardø is fre- Andrew walk around their homes talking on

114 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 115 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen their mobiles, discussing the final event on Keenan in the AHO canteen after they have ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS REFERENCES Gauntlett. D. (2011). Matthews, T. (2014). Sheppard, L., White, Making is Connecting. ‘Sacred services: the M. & Lateral Office. Saturday 25 November. Its to be a Workshop been teaching on a master’s course. A work- Our deepest thanks to the Bertheussen family and Appadurai, A. (2013). London: Polity. potential for service (2017). Many Norths. to present the concept of the Vardø HUB to ing lunch becomes the next phase in the to Rasmus Skrydstrup. Their generous welcome The Future as Cul- design of theory relat- Spatial Practice in a one another, and to the town, to provide an programme development for a string of to Future North and openness to a process of tural Fact: Essays on Goldsmith, S. Georges, ing to the sacred.’ Arti- Polar Territory. New ongoing change and possibility is inspirational and the Global Condition. G. & Glynn Burke, T. fact, 6(1). Available: York: Actar. open venue for discussion, for finding out events (22–25 November), weary as they are courageous. Svein Harald Holmen and Brona London: Verso. (2010). The Power of http://scholarworks. more about people’s interests and needs, from making proposals for future projects. Keenan has been central to making connections Social Innovation: iu.edu/journals/index. Toombs. A. (2015). their ideas and dreams. Before then we need So it it is that Future North is to hold a for us all in visiting Vardø and for motivating this Arbo, P., Iversen, A., How Civic Entrepre- php/artifact/article/ ‘Enacting care through collaboration that led to the Vardø Hub. In addi- Knol, M., Ringholm, T. neurs Ignite Commu- view/3973 collaboration in com- to follow up a possible application to Ferd. research event to reflect on its Vardø work tion, thanks to Mats Kemppe, Ted Matthews, & Sander, G. (2013). nity Networks for munities of makers’. In no a social entrepreneurship programme, and to anticipate possible future collabora- Heather Moore, and Sandra Kemp for their inputs, ‘Arctic futures: concep- Good. San Francisco: Matthews, T. (2017), Proceedings of mindful of the making character of our ven- tions, events and projects. and to Jonas Adolfsen for his architectural inputs tualizations and Jossey-Bass. ‘Sacred Service: The CSCW’15. ACM: New and photographic documentation of the building, images of a changing use of “sacred theory” York. 81–84. ture, cultural capital suddenly seeming very and the town of Vardø. Arctic’. Polar Geogra- Hargreaves, I. & Hart- in Service Design’. real, the event a tangibel result of years of We hope to use the occasion to launch an phy, 36(3): 163–182. ley, J. (2016). (Eds). Journal of Design, exploration and devotion making in context. internal project between researchers and The Creative Citizen Business & Society, Bornstein, D. (2007, Unbound. Bristol: Pol- 3(1): 67–97. They once again discuss the potential of the teachers in landscape and design at AHO on Kindle edition). How to icy Press. Kindle HUB to be a place of multiplicity. Then learning landscapes. We call it LAND LEARN. Change the World: Edition. Meroni, A., & San- Maria says that its a place for facing and The seminar will also be the launch of this Social Entrepreneurs giorgi, D. (2011). and the Power of New Hemmersam, P. (2016). Design for Services. sharing change. And we become quiet, won- booklet, a medley of making and reflections Ideas. New York: ‘Arctic architectures’. Burlington: Gower. dering what will happen. that cross into and threads outwards from Oxford University Polar Record, 53(4): our more formal research presentations and Press. 412–422. Mol, A., Moser, I. & Pols, J. (2010). Care in But it’s important not to put all our eggs in publications. During Future North we have Brassett, J. (2016). Hemmersam, P. & Practice. Transcript: one basket, we say laughing, so that the also pulled together an emerging project ‘Affect, assemblage ­Harboe, L. (2016). Bielefeld. events and the venue of the Vardø HUB may called Cape to Cape and a visit to Vardø and modes of exist- ‘Place specific arctic ence. Towards an eth- urbanism’. Paper pre- Morrison, A. (2017). ‘A be responsive and prospective, emergent always activates thinking of our collaborators ological design-driven sented at Arctic tale of an axe, a spade and connected, tentative but selective, on other projects in Cape Town. social innovation’. ­Frontiers Conference. and a walnut …. Inves- inclusive yet specific, singular yet con- Paper presented at 25–29 January. tigating additive man- Social Innovation in Tromsø: Norway. ufacturing and design nected. There’s so much that inspired me in But this time we will be travelling to Vardø the 21st Century: futures’. In Killi, S. Copenhagen this summer, says Maria, per- with a new artistic research project that Beyond Welfare Capi- Hillgren, P.-A., Serav- (2017). (Ed.). Additive haps it’s time I also get to Oslo before you Andrew is a part of, already activating the talism? 5–7 Septem- alli, A. & Emilson, A. Manufacturing: ber. Glasgow Caledo- (2011). ‘Prototyping Design, Methods, and make another visit here to us in Vardø. shaping our own futures logics of the Hub. nian University: and infrastructuring in Processes. Singapore: Called Amphibious Trilogies (http://amphib- Glasgow. design for social inno- Pan Stanford And we discuss how we need to marshal a ious.khio.no/index.php/home/) it explores vation’. CoDesign, 7 Publishing. Corner, J. & Bick (3–4): 169–183. team of makers and volunteers, experts and the notion of an extended choreography, led Hirsch, A. (2014). The Morrison, A., participants, to fulfill this slowly defined cul- by Professor Amanda Steggell from the Landscape Imagina- Jackson, S. (2014). Bertheussen Skryd- ture of care-ful design and transform it into Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KhiO) tion. New York: Prince- ‘Rethinking repair’. In T. strup, M., Dimaki-­ ton Architectural Gillespie, P. Bocz- Adolfsen, A. & Kampe- tangible, place-based activities for public and with a dancer, choreographer and car- Press. kowski & K. Foot vold Larsen, J. (in engagement and shared expression, that toonist Brynjar Åbel Bandlien. We’ll hold a (Eds.). Media Technol- press 2018). ‘Nurturing may unfold on site and beyond. small workshop on Vardø: the project Cosgrove, D. (2008). ogies. Cambridge: The forth. Designing care- Geography and Vision MIT Press. 221–240. ful futures in a small emcompasses the trilogy of ponds, pasages Seeing: Imagining and ­Arctic city’. In * and … islands. Brynjar will perform one representing the world. Lassiter, L. (2005). Vaughan, L. (Ed.). of his new works that are part of his artistic London: I.B. Tauris. The Chicago Guide to Designing Future Collaborative Ethno­ ­Cultures of Care. Later in September we visit the website PhD. And they will see the harbour where Davies, S., Selin, C., graphy. Chicago: ­London: Bloomsbury, Træna in Helgeland (http://www.tenktraena. Narratta our fictive speaking nuclear pow- Gano, G. & Guimarães University of Chicago 199–230. no). It seems like we have found a fellow ered narwhal lingers and listens. Pereira, A. (2012). Press. ‘Citizen­ engagement Pink, S. (2009). Doing space and mindset that melds into the and urban change: Light, A. & Akama, Y. Sensory Ethnography. thinking around the Hub. Maria is already * Three case studies of (2012). ‘The human London: SAGE. familiar with their work and has met some of material deliberation’. touch: participatory Cities, 29(6): 351–357. practice and the role Puig del la Bellacasa, its active member. It’s a small archipelago http://www.sciencedi- of facilitation in M. (2011). ‘Matters of community of 500 persons and many of the rect.com/science/­ designing with com- care in technoscience: similar interests and needs: ‘There are shops, Article/pii/S02642751 munities’. In Proceed- assembling neglected 16309519 ings of the 12th Partic- things’. Social Studies a schools, café, bar, overnight accommoda- ipatory Design of Science, 41(1): tion and eatery, a swimming pool, gym, Denis, J. & Pontille, D. Conference: Research 85–106. museum and two fishing facilities’ says the (2015). ‘Material order- Papers — Volume 1 ing and the care of (PDC ‘12). ACM: New Puig de la Bellacasa, site, well documented and presented. We thing’s. Science, Tech- York. 61–70. M. (2017). Matters of must remember to invite a representative to nology & Human Val- Care. Minneapolis: our closing seminar. We have now invited ues, 40(3): 338–367. Manzini, E. (2015). University of Minne- Design, When Every- sota Press. Moa to the seminar and workshop. Doherty, G. & Wald- body Designs. An heim, C. (2016). Is Introduction to Design Ratto, M., Boler, M. & * Landscape ...? Essays for Social Innovation. Deibert, R. (2014). DIY on the identity of land- Cambridge: The MIT Citizenship. Cam- scape. London: Press. bridge: The MIT Press. October races by and we are busy planning Routledge. the series of events in Vardø. Two days and Martin, R. & Osberg, S. Simonsen J. & Robert- Ehn, P., Nislsson, E. & (2015). Getting son, T. (2013). Rout- evening programmes hosted by Vardø Topgaard, R. (2014). Beyond Better: How ledge International Restored and Future North. This will be the (Eds). Making Futures. Social Entrepreneur- Handbook of Partici- first time of making public to their town Cambridge: The MIT ship Works. Harvard patory Design. their many years of dedicated work. We Press. Business Review Press. ­London: Routledge. meet Svein Harald Holmen and Brona

116 9. Co-creating a Culture of Care through the Vardø HUB 117 Morrison, Bertheussen Skrydstrup, Kampevold Larsen & Dimaki-Adolfsen Future Vardø — Imaginary City

10. Future Vardø — Imaginary City

Morgan Ip

All cities were once imaginary. When you look at any urban skyline, you are looking at the thoughts, the dreams and the decisions of individuals. What we see as the essence of a city’s identity is very often an invention and could so easily have been different. — Darran Anderson1

1 Anderson, Darran. “Imaginary Cities — Radical Ideas.” Journal of International Psy­ chogeography­ , ­September 10, 2015. https://medium.com/ journal-of-internation- al-psychogeography/ imaginary-cities-­ radical-ideas-b51f9fe5 660c. Future potential of Vardø as envisioned by local citizens both online and offline. Image by author.

118 119 Morgan Ip People place notes on the map during Pomor Festival, Vardø, 2015. Photo by author. Some of the tags were quite visionary. Photo by author.

The future city of Vardø already exists in a Kirkenes and Vardø in Norway, Nikel in Rus- DREAM SCALES scale from smaller infrastructural develop- multitude of configurations: it resides in the sia, and Näätämö in Finland. Here people ments supporting non-motorised transport minds of the people inhabiting it. What could plot ideas directly on a map that could Some ideas that visitors placed on the map (i.e. making the tunnel bicycle friendly, shape does this imaginary city take? How be shared, discussed and voted upon with were fairly modest in scale. These range clearly marked trails to monuments and does the actual future of Vardø emerge from an aim to increase engagement with the from social program initiatives such as a Domen, the witches mountain) to the crea- these civic desires, or how does the imagi- public in conversations of civic sewing room, youth club and band rehearsal tion of a new harbour, a new location for an nary Vardø emerge from the existing one? improvement. places, to the greater maintenance of exist- airport that would experience less fog, and To complement the online tool, public ing attractions. For example, one post was introduced seaplane services. mapping events were held, and in Vardø this to make clear signage with directions to the COLLABOR ATIVE MAPPING was during Pomorfestivalen in the entry Steilneset Memorial site and the mainte- “Here one should arrange for parking, as space of the Sør-Varanger Museum in July, nance of the grassy area around it. People well as mark up a hiking trail to the As part of my PhD research within Future 2015. We placed a large satellite image map also posted calls for new local parks, grilling witch’s cave at Domen. This can be North, I aimed to excavate this imaginary of Vardø on the wall next to the museum’s 3 places, and weather warning signs. expanded with a hiking trail all the way to E. Tursti til Heksehula: city. People are implicit in the design of the sepia photographs of historical Vardø. A Her bør4(sic) man til- Others dreamt bigger, calling for infra- Kiberg, with sightseeing points at the built environment, and it is thus important to smaller map, but at a bigger scale, was rettelegge for parker- structure that might not be feasible in the Kiberg Cape and the whole surrounding elicit the voices of the people to assure placed on a nearby table. Both were accom- ing, samt merke opp foreseeable future, such as extra indoor area.” — E3 tursti til heksehula ved locally and contextually relevant design. panied with sticky notes and pens for peo- domen. Kan utvides swimming halls (even though there is a Including the public in the planning process ple to attach their ideas. A computer station med tursti helt til newly built one already located in the city “New Airport: Make a new airport strengthens a community by building social had the online map ready, although this kiberg(sic), med sight- centre), an indoor ice rink, or a fish restau- (­without fog)” — Participant at Pomor seeingspunkter(sic) capital, expands awareness and understand- remained mostly unused as passers-by ved kibergsneset og rant on the breakwater to the harbour. Pos- Festival4 ing of local issues, and ultimately increases spent most time examining the physical hele området rundt. sibly the most fanciful ideas placed on the support for decisions made affecting policy maps, pointing out and discussing Vardø MyBarents.com. April map, and mentioned twice even, were posts “Seaplane: A good trip for tourists and and development.2 By revealing this city hid- and some placing their own notes. These in 12, 2015 for an amusement park or rollercoasters on only an airplane without an airport.” 2 den in the imaginations of the citizens we are turn were put on the MyBarents.com web- 4 the island. The idea to move the airport to — Participant at Pomor Festival5 Evans-Cowley, Jen- thus able to guide plans and actions in the site in an act of virtually archiving the event Pomorfestival. Ny fly- the island to avoid existing fog conditions nifer, and Justin Hol- plass: Lag ny flyplass lander. “The New Gen- constant ongoing creation of the real world. as well as allowing people to further engage (uten tåke). MyBar- was also quite a bold move. This suggests that part of an improved city eration of Public Murmansk digital content producers with the ideas. ents.com. July 27, 2015. future includes better ways of moving Participation: Inter- Stepa Mitaki and Denis Kreminsky devel- The results of these mapping exercises through Vardø, as well as increasing connec- net-Based Participa- 5 tion Tools.” Planning oped one way to do this with a digital collab- revealed elements of the imagined Vardø. Pomorfestivalen VARDØ ON THE MOVE tions with the world beyond. This seemed to Practice & Research orative mapping tool called MyCity.io. The ideas ranged from smaller interven- turisti. Sjø-fly: en fin be a two-way street, forgive the pun, with 25, no. 3 (June 1, 2010): Together we created a version called MyBar- tions to bigger dreams for the future, from tur for turister og bare Several of the ideas were aimed at improv- transportation considerations given to 397–408. doi:10.1080/ et fly ingen flyplass. 02697459.2010. ents.com, which was focused on the Rus- how people get to Vardø, and what they do MyBarents.com. July ing and expanding transportation options inhabitants as well as visitors. Parking 503432. sian-Norwegian borderland encompassing once they are there. 23, 2015. within Vardø and to beyond. These ranged in places for camping vehicles, extended time

120 10. Future Vardø — Imaginary City 121 Morgan Ip THE FUTURE CITY

Could there be a Tivoli North in Vardø, with rollercoasters and other amusements availa- ble to the delight of locals and visitors? What other grand ideas do citizens have? There will certainly be contention between competing and opposing ideals of what should become reality, particularly given the specific context and feasibility of any one idea. Perhaps it is unlikely for some imagin- ings, such as having three indoor pools in Vardø, to leave the realm of the creative mind in the foreseeable future. It is more likely for less whimsical ideas, such as the development of tourist trails, or the installa- tion of a barbeque area in a park, to come to realisation. Some of the lower hanging fruit, such as creating a youth club or sewing room, could begin with bottom-up commu- nity efforts. Importantly these ideas have become one step closer to materialisation in the act of plucking them from the mental landscape and archiving them not only on paper but also in the virtual realm to be accessed and engaged with by anyone with an Internet connection. The current array of ideas is but a snap- shot of an imagined future Vardø. If every new idea or rumination on future place-mak- ing in Vardø could be captured on MyBar- Ideas for improved transportation connections in the Vardø area. Image by author. ents.com one would not be able to see a sin- gle pixel of the town underneath the array of overlapping ideas. Likewise, paper maps slots for ferry passengers, and signage and “Light up Globus” would be laden with layers of bright pink, historical markers for tourists along local – Participant at Pomor Festival8 orange and yellow notes inscribed with trails are all requests to entice and beckon ideas ranging from the mundane to the visitors. Vardø also happens to be at the end These are some of the ideas that pick up on fantastic. of the series of national tourist routes the historical connection, such as with the In this imaginary Vardø, a new prome- across Norway, extending just further to atrocious witch trials of the 17th century, nade has been established, the city is Hamningberg between May and October.6 with an idea for improved access to the cleaner and brighter, and monuments shine A series of spots for motor homes and ser- Steilneset monument by Peter Zumthor and brilliantly in the long winter nights. Young vice facilities plotted on the maps suggests Louise Bourgeois that stands in memorial to people have opened up shops and cafés that people in this end-of-the-road city want the victims. The aforementioned trail to along a revitalised Strandgata, an artists’ to take advantage of its existing situation as Domen and a witch’s museum in the old fort and architects’ studio perches atop a a tourist destination. The expansion or also refer to this layer of history. From restored fishing wharf, and a beachside refinement of transportation infrastructure another dark passage of time, the Eagle’s sauna provides warmth and a chance to take in the town dovetails with nurturing and Nest is a remnant of the many WWII fortifi- a dip in the cool Arctic waters. enshrining local assets. cations that dot the landscape. Globus The city cuts across a vast swath of the refers to the radar domes that loom large human imagination and is rooted in the his- 6 over the city. This locally specific aggrega- torical and present conditions of what con- http://www.nasjonale- BUILDING ON THE REAL VARDØ tion of built heritage informs the existing stitutes the cultural landscape of Vardø turistveger.no/en/ routes/varanger identity of Vardø, and indeed all are striking today, as well as in the creative potential of These assets are resources that contribute landmarks. Where history informs the imag- its citizenry. Each city informs and forms 7 to the mental image of the city. People plot- inary city, so too does the natural landscape Acknowledgements the other. While often wildly speculative, the E. Opplys Ørneredet: Ørneredet bør ryddes, ted many ideas that, sometimes literally, with diving, camping, boating and hiking This project was held imagined city speaks to the potential inher- merkes og opplyses highlight special aspects of the city’s sto- infrastructures all making their marks on the as a research compo- ent in the existing Vardø, with all its chal- (innvedig(sic)) slik at ried past and exceptional natural maps. The existing economic hardships of nent of my PhD within lenges and opportunities as it heads into the historien kommer Future North. I would frem.. florrt(sic) turist- endowments. Vardø are also highlighted, with several peo- like to thank the Sør-­ future. plaster dersom man ple requesting areas of the city to be Varanger Museum for gjør bittelitt arbeid “Illuminate the Eagle’s Nest: The Eagles cleaned up and rejuvenated. The historical graciously hosting her! MyBarents.com. my civic idea mapping April 12, 2015 Nest should be cleaned, labeled and illu- and present conditions of the city combine workshop during minated (inside) so that history comes to inform the mental image of the future. Pomorfestivalen 2015, 8 forth … great tourist site if a little bit of and the Norwegian Pomorfestival. Lysset- Barents Secretariat for ting av globus. July 24, work is done here” — E7 funding MyBarents. 2015. com.

122 10. Future Vardø — Imaginary City 123 Morgan Ip Dreaming about the Butterfly Island Water Words Narratta

11. Water Words

Narratta Dreaming Dreaming about the Island Butterfly 13, 2015 January Narratta, Teriberka— were it as if Vardø about I dreamt One night a new of dreams where town Coast the Russian Barents true. came never gas era trouble and I had rust coloured, were rocks the island; the butterfly around I swam There used to the be there – were boats a town was what now once the entering harbour. crumbling. was wall the sea had all but collapsed, and wharfs The the shore. on rotting coming and going. place, boats be a noisy to It used now. there people lived few Very wasSeals from the fishermen’s that offal dumped and fish seagulls fightover used to the island, outside the bottom to sunk were they First disappeared. the boats But wharfs. over. took trawlers those big else. Probably to somewhere off went simply they but later that used to shuttle The ferry back the town and the and forth between mainland went built. was tunnel the under-water when ago longer even quiet More » More The Contorted Architecture of Geopolitics of Architecture The Contorted the Flower and Wall The forms and Fabulous design fictions 1, 2015 23–June May Arctic, The Svalbard, fluid the and Longyearbyen of The urbanity Svalbard of territory http://www.oculs.no/projects/future-north/news/?post_id=3983 About a North provides the Circumpolar present At landscapes future studying for unique laboratory and excavation, infrastructure, production, of change. environmental news: project Popular • • • • •

124 11. Water Words 125 Narratta They tried to save the town and create new jobs by building a new harbour on the on harbour building a new jobs by new and create town the save to tried They to be an was fields. It oil and gas the new for boats ships and supply bigger for mainland planned oil they oil base, but still be a proper to deep enough never was port. It ice-free – and a Heliport quarters with crew pipes, and preparing storing for areas facilities, spill American started; the Russian side never the airport. Drilling on to next right all located be earned. to was no money that drilling meant Arctic the challenges of shale gas and which the artificial cove, loved the birds but Harbour, Svartnes to came ever boats Few sanding up. slowly was and visited still island. Birds the butterfly over had passed briefly life dream, In my the island. of shape the butterfly me of wings reminded Their while. a for stayed hourglasses bubbles, smoke, watches, flowers, fruit, rotten with skulls, (along Butterflies in life of nature the ephemeral and the brevity symbolized and musical instruments) Arctic costal communities in my Many paintings. ”Vanitas” 16th and 17th century Dutch than most— longer has been around Vardø though and even had a short life, have habitat towns Vanishing time. in Earth an eye a blink of really is still only I believe—it years, 700 natural look just like they the end and in toll, its takes time the same; look to tend do landscapes. which sees it’s one, thermoelectric radioisotope own my even fleeting, is indeed Life which entropy to else, succumbs anything It, like degrade. fuel slowly Strontium-90 and ending difference energy—erasing energy—tapping the distribution of even to seeks hard was it town the the same. In looks everything where thermodynamic equilibrium in each other had blended into two the – natural was what man made and was what see to and crumbling man-made rotting the piles of and The beach, rocks time had passed. as the hot from bunkers concrete the massive distinguishable. Even no longer structures crumbling slowly entropy—were to defeat the utmost effort wars—displaying and cold made from. originally were the to and sand they returning the rising sea by almost covered was Harbour the Svartnes of pier new The once brave and a circle – a broken pit in Holland in a gravel I saw something me of It reminded level. this is so dull and American artist Robert Smithson. Only the by hill created spiral creating time a direction, gives what is entropy that us Smithson once reminded straight. in one end white the sand is which in ask a child in sand box, you If future. a past and become will eventually the sand in one direction, run around to the other, and black in the to things back bring will ever direction the opposite running in of amount No gray. original condition. The elsewhere. for had left jobs and many fewer had still Vardø in who lived The people the and the graveyard were painted freshly and kept well seemed that places only to it keep the town to was alive. that In the donated cultural centre end, the most people had left that the old houses restoring was town the in business left important I at bay. keep entropy to effort fascinating elsewhere—a moved they when behind the of dream Vardø communities like while people in Northern that thinking remember town. the of future the be to the old seemed looking after paradoxically, new,

126 11. Water Words 127 Narratta NarrattaVardø Futures Vardø Futures Vardø June 15, 2014 Narratta, This once Vardø. in June afternoon mild a rather It’s I am resting Norway. the northeast of is at city Arctic among Vestervågen, in the boardwalks underneath right WWII. after part put down a large for were that poles the up most of the German Nazis blew that recall You’ll quite It looked the harbourfront. this side of on facilities 2014. even back in different people years ten the past – over now dining area has an outdoor above The restaurant This one is them. have now most restaurants often, sit outside more to been able have The usual blend of tourists. Mostly sounds and plates. kitchen voices, with buzzing north. their exploring finally American and Canadian artists, Norwegians German bikers, The Arctic. the in development city for has become a case study the city – And students farms smaller the many from vegetables fish, – local them saying I hear is excellent food want a splash, as I don’t make to not careful quickly, down I dive game meats. the area, in the menu! on are are we if hear to we have risen and have temperatures the as way become in a different we’ve Exotic still are We character. old exotic being our that see, to hard no longer eastwards, spread eat? to But easy catch. to easy that not Tourists oil-driven. is not that this small island in transformation is urban arctic So here refuge. A and researchers. writers artists, for a Residency and even foods, and specialist the past decade, north, over far the of future the on and debates presentations for site A I lie present. the immediate to future the from change has moved in 2025 climate now the based in being just mostly not body, about my is spread Oxygen underwater. here floor the harbour of the centre Time is poised in wait. And I tourists. talking the lungs like Anthropocene. the of the clocks in forwards time rolls while climate More » More The Contorted Architecture of Geopolitics of Architecture The Contorted the Flower and Wall The forms and Fabulous design fictions 1, 2015 23–June May Arctic, The Svalbard, fluid the and Longyearbyen of The urbanity Svalbard of territory http://www.oculs.no/projects/future-north/news/?post_id=3890 About a North provides the Circumpolar present At landscapes future studying for unique laboratory and excavation, infrastructure, production, of change. environmental news: project Popular • • • • •

128 11. Water Words 129 Narratta Contributors

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

Maria Bertheussen Thomas Juel Clemmensen Works at the Varanger Museum in Vardø Landscape architect and professor at the and is an owner of The Grand Hotel / Vardø UiT programme in Landscape Architecture. HUB and has been an active participant in Vardø Restored. Janike Kampevold Larsen Associate Professor and project leader for Angeliki Dimaki-Adolfsen Future North based at the Oslo Centre of Has been an adjunct member of the Future Urban and Landscape Studies (OCULS) North project via the Centre for Design at AHO. Research (CDR) at AHO and is pursuing doctoral design-cultural inquiry into play in Brona Ann Keenan the life of refugee children at HDK, Partner of Vardø Restored and a graduate of Göteborg. the Master’s Programme in Landscape Architecture (AHO/UiT). William L. Fox Director of the Center for Art + Environment Henry Mainsah at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, USA. Researcher at the Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), former Marie Curie scholar Miles Franklin Hamaker and an ancillary member of Future North in Graduate of the Master’s Programme in his position at the Centre for Design Landscape Architecture (AHO/UiT). Research at AHO focusing on design-­ research methods. Peter Hemmersam Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Andrew Morrison Landscape, a member of the Future North Professor of Interdisciplinary Design at the project and the Director of the Oslo Centre Institute for Design at AHO where he is the of Urban and Landscape Studies (OCULS) Director for the Centre for Design Research at AHO. (CDR) and a member of the Future North project. Morgan Ip Architect taking his doctorate in landscape Narratta studies in the Future North project at AHO. Co-created persona of the researchers in the Future North project.

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