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Exhibition about climate changes in the North opens in Arkhangelsk

The exposition also presents practical objects, like, for example the garden beds, which are best for successful growing of vegetables in the North without damaging the environment

ARKHANGELSK, December 11. /TASS/. An exhibition dubbed Climate and People: Changing Together opened at the Northern Arctic Federal University in Arkhangelsk. The exhibition shows how the climate changes influence people and the North’s communities. Through art objects the exposition’s authors show adaptation mechanisms, the exhibition’s curator Mariya Tysyachnyuk told TASS.

"This exhibition is related directly to our expeditions across the North," she said. "We present our studies. Not many would choose to read a scientific article, while the arts attract bigger public interest."

The exhibition is a part of the project Climate-Education-Youth, which features experts of non-governmental organizations, university teachers, specialists, artists, and students. They work on solutions of problems, arising from the climate changes.

The project’s participants work in the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Murmansk and Nenets Regions. "We have been working with local communities, trying to find solutions how to get adapted most effectively to the climate changes," she continued. "For example, in the past, traditional communities of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples, the elderly, could forecast the weather, they knew when to take livestock to a pasture and how. Nowadays, it is so complicated to give forecasts. The role of the elderly is falling. They are respected, of course, but making forecasts is too difficult for them."

Climate trace

"We have been working on strategies to reduce our own climate trace and thus to delay the global climate changes," she continued. "Our objective is to combine science and traditional insight. If the local communities have questions, we find experts, who could answer them."

Curator Alexandra Orlova stressed the importance of using the arts to attract attention to the climate changes.

Many objects, presented at the exhibition, have been made during expeditions to the Northern regions. Tysyachnyuk normally participates in 12-15 international conferences a year, spends 5-8 months in expeditions, runs training courses and delivers lectures at different universities.

She travels mostly by plane. "I have been working across the Arctic. In Alaska, Greenland, I often visit Arctic regions in Finland, Iceland, etc. I have a big ecology trace. Over three years, I have collected many tickets, which now occupy a wall in the room. Thus the question arises: is our work in education reasonable if we leave the climate trace by flying planes," she said.

Sea and land

An artist from Amsterdam, who comes from Arkhangelsk, is an author of a picture Dialog between Land and Sea. The picture’s another author is Ekaterina Sedacheva of Pertominsk, a settlement by the White Sea. "I was dreaming to come to the Arkhangelsk Region, to see the place where I come from. Over recent years, I had projects in 20 countries. I was lucky to meet Ekaterina, who was a speaker at a conference. She spoke about Pertominsk, about the Pomors, and about problems, related to the climate changes," the artist said.

The authors have made a complicated art object, which includes soil samples from Pertominsk.

The exposition also presents practical objects, like, for example the garden beds, which are best for successful growing of vegetables in the North without damaging the environment. Another object presents use of the solar energy in the North.

An installation Tied Together shows the life of herders and fishers on the Kola Peninsula and in the Nenets Region. "Our artists have shown the processes on the Kola Peninsula and in the Nenets Region, caused by the climate changes," Tysyachnyuk said. "They demonstrate deer, and show the time shifts, which require additional management changes among the herders and fishers."

The exhibition will work to February 6. The organizers hope university and school students will attend the exhibition. "It is important for us to see how the youth react to the changes," the exhibition’s curator Kristina Dryagina said in conclusion.