Død pukkellaks ved Grense Jakobselva. // Dead pink salmon at the Jakobselva border river.
Kurator Neal Cahoon og elever lytter til Jakobselv med hydrofon. // Curator Neal Cahoon and students listening to Jakobselva with a hydrophone.
Biolog Cornelya Klütsch og en elev undersøker bakterier fra vannprøver i en petriskål. // Biologist Cornelya Klütsch and a student examining bacteria from water samples in a petri dish.
«River of words» Elevenes papir-elv med ord fra lytteøvelser ved Grense Jakobselv som sammen danner de et dikt som flyter gjennom. // «River of words», the students’ paper river with words from listening exercises at Jakobselva, which together form a poem flowing through the space.
Fanziner laget av elever til utstillingen "Does it hurt when you lose your tail fin"? // Zines made by students for the exhibition “Does it hurt when you lose your tail fin?”
Elevarbeid: fanzine laget som del av utstillingen. // Student work: zine created as part of the exhibition.
Elev undersøker vannprøver med teststrips. // Student examining water samples with test strips.
Elevarbeid: fanzine laget som del av utstillingen. // Student work: zine created as part of the exhibition.
Elev filmer under vann med undervannskamera festet til en selvbygd flåte. // Student filming underwater with an underwater camera attached to a self-built raft. Photo: Hilde Mehti

Art mediation in the North

Youth camp and the art project TRE TRE TRE

Phenology of the North Calotte and the Art Project TRE TRE TRE

In September 2025, NIBIO Svanhovd organized the annual youth camp Phenology of the North Calotte (PNC) at the research station in Eastern Finnmark. The camp has been held since 2003 and aims to strengthen ecological knowledge and environmental awareness among young people in the Barents Region. PNC is an interdisciplinary educational project where students and teachers from Norway and Finland meet to explore nature’s rhythms, climate change, and ecosystems. The participants are youth aged 14–16.

Curator Neal Cahoon and students listening to Jakobselva with a hydrophone.

In recent years, PNC has expanded its scientific content to include water ecology, soil, conservation biology, and Indigenous knowledge. In particular, the Skolt Sámi perspective has gained an important place in the program, offering participants a broader and more holistic view of environmental management and sustainability.


In 2025, artistic research was integrated into the PNC camp for the first time. This was initiated by curators Hilde Methi and Neal Cahoon, both central figures in the multi-year art project TRE TRE TRE, together with Janna Thöle-Juul, Head of Mediation at North Norwegian Art Centre.

Cahoon is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oulu. Together with Methi, he develops the project’s interdisciplinary and site-specific approach in collaboration with various art and research communities that meet across the northeast.¹

Curators Hilde Methi and Neal Cahoon in conversation with students.

TRE TRE TRE takes place in different forest areas, with its starting points in Pasvik (Sør-Varanger, Norway) and Temminki-Markkatieva (Kiruna Municipality, Sweden) — two forests located about 800 km apart. Together with any third forest — or a forest that once existed — they form a triangle. In TRE TRE TRE, the third forest is unspecified, opening up possibilities for new connections.

At a time when issues related to land and natural resource use are increasingly challenging communities across the North Calotte, TRE TRE TRE employs artistic fieldwork and the concept of triangulation to develop new forms of knowledge. How can art contribute to understanding environmental change in an Arctic context — not as a supplement to science, but as an essential part of knowledge production?

Student work: zine created as part of the exhibition.


In the summer of 2025, prior to the PNC camp and as part of TRE TRE TRE, a week-long fieldwork project titled Withing with Waters was conducted in Pasvik and Sør-Varanger. It involved artists Kristin Tårnesvik and Åse Løvgren, in addition to the three aforementioned participants. Informed and inspired by NIBIO Svanhovd biologists Cornelya Klütsch and Paul Eric Aspholm, specific river ecosystems became subjects of artistic exploration. This formed the foundation for the methods that were later further developed and adapted for work with the youth during the PNC camp.

Student work: zine created as part of the exhibition.



From Shared Fieldwork to Collective Exhibition
The camp gathered 40 young participants from Norway and Finland for a week of interdisciplinary exploration of nature, science, and art. Each day alternated between practical outdoor exercises, laboratory work, art workshops, reflective discussions, and academic lectures. Everyone participated in all activities, and the camp was structured so that scientific and artistic perspectives could interact in the exploration of themes related to freshwater pearl mussels and pink salmon — such as water quality and climate change.

Pink sheets hanging as a visual average of water samples – the colours are derived from test strips where students measured nitrite.


The exploration took place both through measurement and data collection, and through sensory experiences, text, sound, and video. The participants investigated the river using hydrophones and underwater cameras, wrote reflections inspired by the sounds of the riverbank, and created fanzines. They were also introduced to relevant interdisciplinary contemporary art projects.

The camp concluded with presentations in which the students shared insights from the various topics. One group worked on developing an exhibition based on the artistic material collected during the camp, taking on roles as both artists and curators. Underwater footage became a video piece; sound recordings from the river were combined with spoken words written by participants; colors from the water laboratory’s test strips were translated into an installation visualizing an average color spectrum; and the fanzines were gathered into a small fanzine library.

Zines made by students for the exhibition «Does it hurt when you lose your tail fin?»


All of this culminated in a collective exhibition at the end of the week — a shared art project reflecting the young participants’ experiences, reflections, and collaboration across disciplines and borders. The exhibition was titled Does it hurt when you lose your tail fin?, illustrating how a week of scientific and artistic work on pink salmon and river ecology also opened up space for empathy and curiosity about the living conditions of other beings.

¹ The project has been ongoing since 2023 and is being developed through various dialogues and collaborations, including with the research project Anthropogenic SOILS and researchers Nora S. Vaage, Ursula Münster, and Susanne Bauer, as well as artist Annike Flo. The project also involves biologists Cornelya Klütsch and Paul Eric Aspholm at NIBIO, artist Lena Ylipää in Lainio, mathematician Kajsa Møllersen in Guovdageaidnu, and Remi and Jade in Helsinki.

Photos by: Janna Thöle-Juul

Links for further reading:
https://tretretre.multiplace.org/
https://fenologi.nibio.no/nb/about-the-project