LASER Talk: Adaptation and Interconnected Agencies

How is the impact of technologies visible in the environment? What is nature? What kind of traces of the past can be seen in the environment? What kind of stories do current changes tell and to which future directions do they point? 

New Nuuk is a visual essay about the rapid urbanization going on at the moment in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. On my first visit to Nuuk in 2018, I was captivated by the visible changes happening in the city and its surroundings. It was striking to see old buildings and structures give way to new constructions which are vividly visible in the barren and majestic landscapes dominated by the sea and surrounding mountains.

There are a number of reasons for these changes. No view is innocent, no gaze is innocent – there are many undercurrents and interests in action when envisioning what kind of transitions the North will encounter in times to come. Greenlandic traditions and traces of the colonialist past of Greenland meet the demands of contemporary urban planning and housing. Economical, political and military interests are an integral part of the way in which the future is shaped.

With the dramatic and often tragic effects of climate change becoming increasingly obvious, the question of ‘adaptation’ is high on the global political agenda – not least in the rapidly changing Arctic.

Yet, this is a region marked by histories of colonisation, geostrategic military competition, and resource extraction – all of which interweave with understandings of what adaptation can and should look like. In my brief intervention, I ask the question of how we consider ‘geopolitics’ in the Arctic, and how that enables or disables action. With regional governance structures centred on so-called Arctic states and their officials, what identities are legitimised, whose voices are heard, and what futures are rendered (im)possible?

My current research and work focuses on the question: What does it mean to care for human and non-human futures in the era of the so-called Anthropocene and accelerated biotechnologies? Global warming advances two times faster in Arctic areas, threatening flora and fauna. Furthermore, modernisation and technologisation impacts traditional cultural practices such as reindeer herding. Technoscientific "fixes" promise to hinder these ramifications, for example through geoengineering and by restoring biodiversity through genome-editing. However, these aims usually follow a human-centred approach.

In my current artistic practice, I explore alternative approaches through speculative design and collaborative storytelling. In order to challenge the setting where "nature" is engineered to adapt to the human induced ecological crisis, I introduce a speculation by turning these ethics-of-care around: what if on the contrary human would be "enhanced" with genetic modifications to adapt to the changing environment? The question is meant to provoke further thinking: How can we imagine non-destructive alternatives to the modern-driven technological developments in the Arctic? – I am exploring these questions in my current collaboration project with Leena and Oula A. Valkeapää. Our project focuses on modern-technological shift in Oula's reindeer herding practice, particularly impacting on the movement from (semi)-nomadic to stationary. We create stories exploring the implications within the present everyday herding practice and simultaneously imagine a different kind of (technological) future.

With global warming the sea ice will be thinner, warmer, and more fragmented than before. Typical ice conditions are changing from level ice into ice floes moving with waves. These changes will have an impact on the global climate, but also to the design and operation of ships and marine structures, including offshore wind farms. However, our understanding of ice floes in waves and the fracture of ice is patchy; our understanding of ice loads on ships in fragmented ice with waves is almost non-existent. Global warming is not solving our ice problems for good, but instead calls for novel sea ice studies – both in the field and in the laboratories.