The Arctic is undergoing rapid environmental and sociocultural transformations driven by global processes and climate change. These changes disproportionately affect Sámi Indigenous communities and other northern populations whose livelihoods and cultural practices are closely connected to their environments. While such transformations often generate vulnerability and loss, they may also create new possibilities for adaptation and renewal. Rievdan (Change) is a two-year arts-based action research project that foregrounds Indigenous worldviews and epistemologies in the North. The project seeks to enhance community resilience by supporting artistic expression as a means of articulating local perspectives and communicating them to broader audiences and decision-makers.

Our presentation introduces preliminary findings from art-based action research conducted in 2025-2026 in Vuotso (Finland) and Kárášjohka (Norway), both located in the Sámi homeland. Participants across generations engaged with themes of change through collaborative artistic processes. In our presentation we will analyse both the process and products and reflect how community-based art education can open spaces for participants to negotiate through art meanings of their ecocultural identity within changing environmental and multicultural contexts.  The theoretical basis is grounded in community-based art education and AAE, and shares through public art the paticipans voices and highlights Northern perspectives for broader audiences.

The project is funded by the Kone Foundation and the University of Lapland, it forms part of the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland’s development work in transformative Arctic art education.

Art-based Action Research The data consist of visual and textual documentation of both processes and outcomes, analysed through intertwined reflective and reflexive thematic methods.

As expected outcomes our research demonstrates how participants engage with their environments through art, attribute meanings to places that matter to them, and begin to reflect on potential futures. Art can strengthen intercultural and environmental awareness, foster a sense of belonging, and support the development of agency

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