Living in the Landscape Summer School 2023-2025: Hybrid Development Project (Lila) is a three year development project that seeks to establish a hybrid realization model of international Summer School of education for sustainability for Ma and PhD students organized in collaboration with 3 universities (Norway, Sweden and Finland), museums and education institutions in each country.

The Living in the Landscape (LiLa) Summer School (2023–2025) is a three-year hybrid development project aiming to create a multidisciplinary, culturally and socially sustainable model for international collaboration in higher education in the Nordic region. The project unites three universities—the University of Lapland (Finland), Nord University (Norway), and Umeå University (Sweden)—together with regional museums and international partners from the University of the West of Scotland and the University of the Highlands and Islands.

The annual LiLa programme consists of online seminars that build theoretical and methodological foundations, fieldwork in alternating Nordic locations, and hybrid exhibitions and publications showcasing students’ and scholars’ artistic and research outcomes. Digital learning tools (Padlet, Miro, virtual exhibitions) and community-based pedagogies enable collaboration and reflection across borders.

Regional museums—Västerbotten Museum, Arktikum Museum of Lapland, and Helgeland Museum—contribute local expertise, archives, and collections as learning environments. Collaboration with local communities is central: participants engage with residents to understand cultural and environmental contexts and to support local sustainability initiatives and small-scale enterprises.

Through this partnership, LiLa fosters interdisciplinary networking, produces new artistic and research methods, and strengthens creative capacity in education for sustainability. The project contributes to a deeper, shared understanding of northern landscapes and enhances long-term cooperation between universities, museums, and communities across the Nordic region.

LiLa see

Nurture

Härkönen, E., Lundstedt, L., Burnett, K., Gårdvik, M., & Permar, R. (Eds.) (2023). Nurture: Living in the Landscape Summer school and exhibition. Lapin yliopisto.

Publication

Flow

Härkönen, E., Burnett, K., Lundstedt, L., Permar, R., & Gårdvik, M. (Eds.) (2024). Flow: Currents of Change in our River Landscapes. Lapin yliopisto.

Publication

Kindred

Lundstedt, L., & Härkönen, E. (Eds.) (2025). Kindred: Living in the Landscape. Lapin yliopisto.

Publication

Living with Land and People

Huhmarniemi, M. & Jokela, T. (Eds.). (2025). Living with Land and People: A Handbook for Artistic Project and Art-based Action Research in the Arctic. University of Lapland.

Handbook

Student Theses

Lappeteläinen, S. (2024). Ekososiaalisen sivistyksen teemat osaksi Living in the Landscape -kesäkoulua [Themes of Ecosocial Education Integrated into the Living in the Landscape Summer School]. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland]. Lauda.  https://lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/66135

Tanrıverdi, E. (2024). Playground of the Mind: Exploring the Uncanny Landscape Through Participatory Art and Self-Expression. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland].

Kairenius, E. (2024). Kanssatietämistä rakentamassa Living in the Landscape -kesäkoulussa: Taideperustainen toimintatutkimus [Co-Creating Shared Knowing in the Living in the Landscape Summer School: An Arts-Based Action Research Study]. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland]. https://lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/66089

Haavisto, E. (2024). Sheltering Northern Ecocultures: Art-Based Activities Across Disciplines, Places, and Practices in Higher Education. ]. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland]. Lauda. https://lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/66604

Salmivaara, M. (2023). Kestävä kehitys ja maisema – Living in the Landscape 2 -koulu kestävyyskasvatuksena [Sustainability and Landscape – Living in the Landscape 2 Summer School as Education for Sustainability]. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland]. Lauda.  https://lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/66014

Kanerva, V. (2022). “Emme koskaan tavanneet kasvokkain. Kuinka outoa.” Taideperustaisen toiminnan materiaalis-kehollisuus hybridimallisessa Living in the Landscape -kevätkoulussa [“We Never Met Face to Face. How Strange.” The Material and Embodied Dimensions of Arts-Based Practice in the Hybrid Living in the Landscape Spring School]. [Master’s thesis, University of Lapland]. Lauda.   https://lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/65056

Visual essays

News

Fourth Living in the Landscape summer school examines forests

The aim of the Living in the Landscape Summer School series is to bring together MA/ PhD students and scholars from different disciplines and circumpolar higher education institutions to develop culture-sensitive and sustainable research on the sociocultural landscapes of the Arctic region. Another central aim is to create encounters and dialogue between traditional forms of culture and contemporary practices and discover how these could be presented through art.

Nurture: Living in the Landscape Publication and Exhibition 2023 launched

The book and the exhibition showcases both the students and teaching scholars art-based investigations on forest landscapes in the Nordic region, and in Scotland.

The fifth Living in the Landscape Art-based Research Method’s Summer School investigates rivers and the impact of green energy

The theme this year is rivers and the impacts of green energy production on river landscapes.

Flow Exhibition features the Living in the Landscape "Lila" Summer School

The exhibition features the works of 19 students and teachers, who examine both the changed river and reservoir landscapes of Finnish Lapland and also their own river landscapes in their home regions in Sweden, Norway, Scotland and Shetland.

The Sixth Living in the Landscape Summer School in Nesna, Norway

Over these six Lila schools, approximately 100 participants have contributed to this growing community, sharing not only knowledge but also moments of connection, discovery, and reflection. The outcomes of their work – installations, performances, films, soundscapes, texts, and visual art – are as diverse as the landscapes themselves, yet all are united by a profound attention to place, ecology, and the human relationship with the more-than-human world.

Living with Land and People: A Handbook for Artistic Project and Art-based Action Research in the Arctic

Drawing on years of teaching, research, and artistic practice through the Living in the Landscape summer school, this handbook highlights examples of how students and scholars from across the Arctic have learned, created, and shared artistic creation. It demonstrates how art can become a meeting place: for collaboration between disciplines, for dialogue between people and the Land, and for imagining sustainable Arctic futures.