The project as a whole performs an active mapping and documentation of contemporary circumpolar landscapes that are evolving in an unfolding future. The research will have a direct political relevance as it focuses on the material and action oriented formation of landscape in the circumpolar north, perspectives that play a role in relation to planning policies. The project is founded in a conception of landscape as a shared material human experience. Rather than looking at production forms the project looks at landscape as the result of cultural and social development – and as an agency in their production. A base assumption is “that there is no escape from matter,” and that landscapes are related to social development at a material basis that may not be circumvented. Social change can be interpreted, informed and read in the configurations of our material landscapes. Northern landscapes are under pressure due to planned exploration and extraction of oil, gas and minerals. The Government’s white paper on the High North does not particularly sketch strategies for a sustainable development of the terrestrial part of the Norwegian North , while in reality these landscapes provide a unique laboratory for studying future landscapes of production, infrastructure, excavation, and environmental change. The project maps these ‘future’ landscapes from an interdisciplinary perspective and studies the relationship between people and their environments as well as the importance of social and individual agency in the development of the landscapes. Integral to the project is work to raise awareness and knowledge about new landscape typologies, to include the everyday in the category of landscape, and to explore means to articulate and narrate such perspectives.
