Visual artist Håvard Homstvedt and author, journalist and writer Teresa Grøtan are both in residence at Artica Svalbard - with artist Anette Gellein.
Homstvedt was nominated to the Artica Svalbard residency programme by the Queen Sonja Print Award and Grøtan by Norsk PEN. During their stay they are working on individual projects, holding reading clubs for children and organising open workshops to introduce how they explore ideas, meaning, social and political relevance within their work.
As part of Teresa Grøtan and Håvard Homstvedt’s final week in Longyearbyen, they will open the workshop and give insight into the various processes and references that have been important to them during their time in Longyearbyen.
Håvard Homstvedt has compiled a list of references to accompany his work in progress:
Herman Melville- Moby Dick
Mary Shelley- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Immanuel Kant- Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Polar Exploration in the Romantic Era
Teresa Grøtan is working on a book that explores how climate change affects young people all over the world.
"In Bangladesh, I write about second generation domestic climate refugees because of typhoons, in Kiribati in the Pacific I write about how the young people possibly won’t have a country at all when they grow up, since the island nation might disappear completely within 30-50 years. In the US, I write about the lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the US government for violating their constitutional rights to a stable climate and livelihood – and here, in Svalbard, I document what has shocked me the most: the rise of 7.5 degrees Celsius since 1967- 2016, the ice that no longer covers the Adventfjord, the melting permafrost, and the terrible avalanche in December 2015 that almost killed two of the young people I will feature in the book."
The book is due to be published in autumn 2018 by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.