ARSBOREALIS

Arsborealis is a non profit organization and it's mission is to promote west nordic history and culture, with special emphasis on methods used for creating hand crafts and working with local materials and resources. The organizations main activities are organizing and promoting exhibitions and conferences which focus on the history and culture of the west nordic region. These exhibitions aim to create closer ties between parties in the region who are working on promoting local hand crafts. The main activities for 2012-2014 will be the exhibition Arsborealis - Culture, Art and History of the Northern Hemisphere.

Arsborealis was established in November 2011 for this project and others similar future projects. The organization is a group of people who are interested in Art and Culture in the Northern part of the world and their herritage. We have as a group under the name of Vestnorden Arts & Crafts www.vestnordencrafts.com arranged Crafts marketing and selling exhibitions both in Iceland and Greenland. In 2005 we made a travelling exhibition which we called TRANSform and in 2005 and 2007 it was set up in Copenhagen Denmark,Berlin Germany Estonia, Åland islands,Reykjavík Iceland Greenland and Faroe Islands. We have one employee as project Leader for the Arsborealis exhibition and a group of specialists to value the exhibitions pieces, designer of the exhibition and partners in all participating countries Organisation addresses:

The purpose of the project is to introduce the history, culture and art creations of people in the northern periphery. Special attention is given to exposing children and young adults to the cultural heritage. This will be accomplished with different themes in the exhibition, laying out the material in an easy to understand manner. Cooperation between the North-Western territorial areas will also be given much space in the exhibition. This kind of exhibition can be a feasible venue for cultural tourism but at the same time the vastness of the area and long distances may attract tourists per se, who would be ready to pay what it costs to reach the Northern spheres thus realizing tourism as a viable industry.

The first Arsborealis project is an exhibition in Akureyri Art Museum - Ketilhús. Participants will come from Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Nunawut and Norway. The Akureyri Town Council is currently celebrating the 150 years existence of Akureyri, a town of about 20,000 inhabitants in the north of Iceland and is planning to make the exhibition an integral part of the celebration and sees it as a fantastic opportunity to show the history of Akureyri in a larger context. A future plan is to travel with this exhibition to Copenhagen Denmark, Torshavn in the Faroes and Nuuk Greenland in the year 2013.