Three Degrees is partnering with the Re-Locate Project, an international group of partners working with Kivalina to support a culturally specific and community-led relocation process.
Together with the city and tribal councils, the people of Kivalina, and representatives from related agencies, Re-Locate is producing online and site-specific projects that: make the social, political, and environmental issues related to relocation visible to global audiences; support community discussion and consensus building; locate, connect and educate new relocation partners; create spaces where people in Kivalina can share original media and ideas about local identities and ways of life; and develop an infrastructure for managing global support and pursuing relocation planning opportunities.
Last summer, at the invitation of people in Kivalina, Anchorage-based artist and architect Michael Gerace brought fourteen international researchers and artists to visit Kivalina for a 10-day work camp last August to build solidarity and opportunities for listening and ongoing engagement. The camp, which identified relocation as an impetus to study and affect the most pressing humanitarian and architectural issues in the state of Alaska, was co-produced by the Alaska Design Forum with initial funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and other partners. Invited collaborators represented several universities, including the University of California Santa Cruz, California College of the Arts, and the University of Washington.
Results included the launch of two information-sharing websites: 1) kvak.tv, a site hosting youth-made films about day-to-day life in Kivalina, 2) and relocate-ak.org; as well as an upcoming launch of a third site specifically designed to provide context for people from Kivalina to share ideas about social justice, planning, governance, and locality. Re-Locate also taught two university-supported relocation education workshops in London and Vienna.
This past July marked the second in a series of Re-Locate Project camps in Kivalina. Participants represented universities including the [applied] Foreign Affairs Laboratory, University of Applied Arts Vienna; the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London; and the University of Washington. Alaska Pacific University hosted the camp’s culminating Project Review on July 30, 2012, with the Kivalina city and tribal councils in attendance.
Results of Camp II include visualizations of Kivalina’s multiple water economies, spatial maps of 40 interviews with state and federal agencies and Kivalina delegates of the social and political processes influencing relocation, and an architectural concept of a new ReLocation Center building in Kivalina.
Three Degrees Warmer initiated its partnership with Re-Locate last year, and is helping support both on- and off-site project initiatives. Visit Re-Locate to learn more.