Climate for (Ex)change

From 27 June to 2 July 2022 a group of young people came together in Harstad, Norway to explore the world around them through photography. This was one of several projects organised by NUK, an inclusive youth arts festival, which runs alongside the annual Festpillene i Nord-Norge, the Arctic Arts Festival. 

The Foto Project is led by Pål Henrik Ekern, diversity curator at Preus museum, Norway’s National Museum of Photography, in collaboration with Silje Gulstad from Trastad Samlinger, Outsider Art Gallery and Museum. This year disabled artist, curator and writer Aidan Moesby and Disability Arts Online were invited to join the project, adding new creative elements and documenting the project for this website so that more people can see the incredible work created in the few days at the festival. 

This year, participants on the Foto Project included five Ukrainian refugees. This quickly became a multilingual project with Norwegian, English, Ukrainian and Russian being spoken alongside the visual language of photography itself. The group met and worked daily throughout the festival, responding to a variety of assignments and analysing their results to select the best pieces for printing and display. Themes covered #noface self-portrait, nature, humans in nature, sound, nightlife and colour. 

A pop-up exhibition space in Harstad town centre showcased the work over a 24 hour period. The exhibition then moved to Trondenes Historical Centre for the summer of 2022. Works created by the young people have, with their permission, been accessioned into the museums’ collections as a permanent record for future generations.

The inclusion of Aidan Moesby and Disability Arts Online in the collaboration was made possible by a British Council International Collaboration Grant. This funded project, Climate for (Ex)change, aims to use action research as a way of developing inclusive working practices within socially engaged projects, foster better understanding of disability through arts and culture and build networks that support disabled artists to work professionally.