Nurture: Living in the landscape summer school and exhibition,

The publication celebrates and records the fourth Living in the Landscape (LiLa) international and interdisciplinary spring and summer school and exhibition. Nurture: Living in the Landscape 2023 was opened and launched on November 13, 2023 at Ljusgården, the Teacher Education building at Umeå University, Sweden.

The book consists of two parts - the catalogue to the exhibition through the participants' artist statements and visual essays where some of each project participant's processes are introduced in depth. These essays include elements from both the research project's fieldwork locations and each writers’ own places. The artworks, artist statements and visual essays show how participants consider their dwelling, identity and work methods in relation to the themes - forests and nurture. The works reflect how our living can be made more sustainable and consistent for the other beings dwelling in these same landscapes.

The book and exhibition showcase both the students' and artist/researchers '(who teach the students) arts-based investigations into forest landscapes in the Nordic region, and in Scotland.

LiLa is organised in collaboration with the University of Lapland (organiser), Umeå University, Nord University of Norway (Nesna campus), University of the West of Scotland and University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI Shetland). This year the school also had visiting lecturers from University of Alaska Anchorage and Yukon School of Visual Arts, Canada. The PhD and MA students and scholars for the school in 2023 came from the fields of Creative Media Practice, Art Education, Art and Culture, Teacher Education, Ecology, Applied Visual Arts, Art and Social Practice, and Architecture. The development of LiLa, its pedagogy, digital implementation and production of results, is funded by the University of the Arctic and Nordplus Horisontal.

The school bis uilt on the sustainable investigation of the Arctic and Near Arctic sociocultural dimensions and human and non-human agencies related to forests. In the school participants observed together a deepening appreciation of the complex and fascinating balance between nature and nurture. Forests are no simple emergence but rather are a layered space of natural and social tension and harmony, located in place.