Living with the Ocean Travels to Tórshavn
In May 2026, the travelling exhibition Living with the Ocean came to the Faroe Islands. Installed in the city centre at Havnará, near Vaglið, it opened on Tuesday 26 May as one of the social and cultural highlights of the UArctic Congress. Leaders from the municipality and Visit Tórshavn welcomed the exhibition, and the opening ceremony featured performances by musician Lyon Hansen.
The exhibition has been developed by Craft Research Lab and the Centre for Arctic Humanities at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and was prepared for the UArctic Congress together with UArctic Thematic Network on Environmental Humanities. Since its European launch in 2024 the exhibition has travelled to Portugal, Belgium, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Greenland, Canada, and now Tórshavn, reaching three continents by the summer of 2026.
The Tórshavn iteration presented eight new weather-resistant canvases (180 × 180 cm): seven inspired by ongoing research at UiT, and one dedicated to a Faroese song text about the sea. Alongside them, a blank canvas invited visitors to draw their own visions for the future of the Arctic. This was part of the exhibition’s co-creative approach, where arts and sciences converge and communities are encouraged to reimagine their relationship with water.
The Tórshavn showing was made possible and funded through the partnership between Tórshavn Municipality, UiT and UArctic, with further support from EEA grants and UArctic Norwegian Funding for Networking Activities. Placed out in the open in the city centre, it acted as a bridge between the university and the local community, inviting residents into dialogue about Arctic research and cultural heritage. The full collection is freely available in open-access format at oceanpastfutures.weebly.com.
Lilli Mittner, Vice-Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Environmental Humanities