“The national state does not exist,” says my friend from the South, still sharing the sun with me on my staircase.

“The national state does not care about you. It is a romantic construction that is several hundred years old, intended to separate the Italians from the French, the Norwegians from the Swedes.”

If there is any tension between the Arctic and the central Nordic Region, then it is about history and the Nordic Region as a collaborative project between national states. Building a national identity was difficult for many people in the Northern areas and people were forced to adopt the ideal – clean, national – and that did not match all the cultures. None of the Nordic countries have recognised themselves as colonialists when it comes to the Sàmi areas.

The Nordic Region dates back to the 1950s and is based upon the ideas of closeness, ties of peaceful collaboration, shared history and similarities in culture and politics. It seems like the cultural life in several of the Nordic countries is exposed to more political controlled structures, and artists seem to be losing more of their power to define. The Nordic Region just recently closed down some of its arts institutions and organisations. NIFCA was one of them. It worked well and was interested in contextualising “Nordic” issues and collaborating on different subjects all over the Nordic countries. A huge amount of the money saved by closing down the institutions will be used to support Nordic game development. The other part will be used for arts programmes. Maybe one approach is to become similar to the EU system.

A problem with institutions, though, is that the idea seems to be the bigger the better. A problem with programmes is that they seem to fit best for those that already have stable funding. Generally, I think Nordic regional cooperation seems to be something good because it has its own system with its own money coming from the national states, and therefore is not relying on the politics of one national state, but on several. It can work jointly on shared interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries After World War II, “For Norway” postcards were produced and sent by the Swedes to the Norwegians to celebrate Norway’s freedom: “the mountains shall carry the freedom; the fjords mirror the peace”.

“From a Sàmi perspective, the Nordic Region is ambivalent, because the Nordic Region is what we absolutely are a part of, and at the same time the Nordic countries represent the colonialists,” says the Norwegian artist Geir Tore Holm.

“Anyhow, I look at the social democracy of the Nordic Region as an important contribution to the world, even though the ideology of similarity has impacted negatively on the minorities. Could we also look at Sàpmi or “the Sàmi” as a contribution, both with values and even as a problematisation of the Nordic?”

(The concept of ‘Sàpmi’ is referring to the ‘nation’ – the Sàmi land). The Sàmi people say they are one people in four countries. They have never wanted a national state, but they fight for autonomy to control land and water, for instance.)

“It is the insider-outsider viewpoint that has been a central driving force for me as an artist, on many levels. To have a northern point of reference is good – cold at the back if you look South. And if you release yourself from ethnic jokes and other burdens, it can give something nice and easy – a bit wry. Isn’t it all about seeing the use in it?”

The artist Geir Tore Holm and his partner Søssa Jørgensen are spending their summers at the Sørfinnset school, working on a social art project that focuses on ecology. The project involves local people in Sørfinnset, as well as Nordic and international artists. The project – the nord land – is a collaborative project with the land foundation in Thailand.