Northern Ethnotopias in the contemporary art of Russia and the Northern America

Soloviova Anna Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0003-3666-8590 Doctor of Philosophy Professor; Higher School of Social Sciences and Humanities and International Communication; M.V. Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University 163000, Russia, Arkhangelsk region, Arkhangelsk, nab. Severnaya Dvina, 112 k. 1, sq. 5 annasolov@mail.ru

Introduction.

In environmental and geopolitical contexts, the Arctic of the 21st century is often presented as a laboratory of the future, in which scenarios of global disasters are unfolding and tools for their prevention are being developed. The connection between the real geographical space of the Arctic and the imaginary world of the North is embodied in a variety of ethnocultural traditions, scientific research and artistic works of the past and present. If the circumpolar territories are perceived by an external observer as endless and deserted lands, then for local residents they are places filled with multiple and, often, contradictory meanings of human experience. The livelihood, daily routine, and worldview of northern communities are shaped by the space of the North, which has its own set of time coordinates: precolonial/colonial, traditional/modernizing, ethnic/national. The contradiction between the universality of the ideas of cold, winter, and icy deserts and the specifics of ethnocultural landscapes is embodied in the ethnotopias of the North, reflecting the interaction of art, science, and traditional knowledge.

The artistic development of the Arctic is included in the processes of its European colonization of the XVII – XX centuries and is described in the context of the "Western" art history. However, the aesthetic practices of the inhabitants of the North have their own repertoire of symbols and technologies, which are transformed under the influence of intercultural interaction into original artistic projects, characterized by a combination of traditions and novelty, aboriginal and European, past and present. Contemporary art presents the Arctic within the framework of such topical themes as multiculturalism and interdisciplinarity, environmental activism and minimalism, man-made and bodily knowledge, immersive and multisensory experience, "archival turn" and "new historical sensitivity." The site–specificity and performativity of art practices of the 21st century is aimed at exploring "northernness" as an experience of living together in time/space by residents of various circumpolar territories. The application of the concept of "ethnotopia" to the analysis of these practices makes it possible to reflect the dialogue of images of the past and the future in the global/local context of art.

The aim of the study is to identify the features of "ethnotopia" as a strategy for representing the North in the context of interdisciplinary visual arts projects of the early 21st century.

To achieve the goal, you need to answer the following questions:

1. How can the concept of "ethnotopia", which has developed in the discourses of ethnology, history and art theory, be applied to the study of contemporary art in the North and the Arctic?

2. What features of the interaction of real and imaginary space, embodied in interdisciplinary projects of contemporary artists, form the semantic field of the "ethnotopia of the North"?

Various aspects of the concept of ethnotopia are presented in the works of B. Nichols ^[1], K. Russell ^[2], in the study of Z. Bauman ^[3] and in the descriptions of the phenomenon of nostalgia by F. Jamison ^[4], K. Owens ^[5], S. Boym ^[6] and V. Degtyarev ^[7]. Representations of ethnocultural objects in the context of relational aesthetics and artistic postproduction are analyzed by N. Burrio ^[8]. The transformation of ethnographic and artistic traditions in the context of modernization, colonization and globalization is demonstrated in collective works edited by A. Schneider and K. Wright ^{[9, 10]}, I. Karp and S. Lavin ^[11], G. Markus and F. Myers ^[12], in the monographs of D. Clifford ^[13] and T. Smith ^[14].

Circumpolar studies of art are reflected in the works of Russian, Scandinavian and North American researchers devoted to key dimensions of artistic practices in the Arctic and the North. D. Chartier ^[15], E. N. Romanova, D. N. Zamyatin ^[16], N. M. Terebikhin ^[17] conceptualize the ontological foundations of the northern experience and identify its civilizational and national cultural dimensions. The research group led by T. Jokela, G. Coutts and M. Humairieni ^{[18, 19]} systematizes the national and multicultural meanings of the Arctic experience. The work of Russian authors embodying the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the North in modern forms is understood by V. V. Timofeeva ^[20], R. R. Romanov, G. S. Popova ^[21], A.G. Petrova - Careit, E.V. Yakovleva ^[22].

The study uses a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach combining theoretical and methodological analysis of the concepts of "ethnotopia", cultural and art criticism (semiotic, hermeneutical and institutional) analysis of cultural codes and visual representations of the North, as well as a case study (situational analysis) of the work of U. Podkorytova and M. McMaster. To identify the semantic fields and semantic blocks of the concept of "ethnotopia of the North," the study uses the method of thematic analysis of works on the theory of ethnology and art, as well as a set of texts created by artists and curators of contemporary art projects in the Arctic.

For the empirical analysis of artistic practices in the 2010s and 2020s, a set of qualitative methods is used, including grounded theory and situational analysis. The formalized description of artistic techniques, technologies, and semantics of interdisciplinary art (photographs, videos, performances, installations, and spatial interventions) is complemented by their critical analysis in the discursive fields of the "ethnotopias of the North." The cases for analysis were selected from among interdisciplinary art projects in Russia and North America in the 2010s and 2020s exploring the ethnocultural meanings of the northern territories.: exhibitions, photo and video installations, media archives containing documentation of artistic research and practices of co-creation with local communities.

Conceptualization of the "ethnotopia of the North" in the dialogue of sciences and arts of the XX – XXI century.

The term "ethnotopia" refers to a strategy of artistic representation of territories that combines the natural landscape and the daily life of residents into a holistic image that is identified as "ethnic" in local and global contexts. Ethnotopias have their own symbolic codes and descriptive languages that express the idea of a deep connection between ethnic groups and their place of residence in the historical past or a fantastic future. The content of ethnotopia is formed at the intersection of the discourses of geopolitics, historical memory, folk traditions, professional art and mass media, in which ethnic meanings of geographical spaces are articulated.

The ethnotopias of the North reflect the conflict of interpretations of circumpolar territories that arises between the idea of them as neutral "empty" spaces and as "places" embodying the Arctic Human experience in its historical and cultural diversity. Travel stories, adventure novels, poetry, songs, films, and visual arts are a body of texts that can be used to view the North as a cultural construct and aesthetic whole that crosses epochs, genres, and styles. Ethnotopic art projects are based on the iconic system of the imaginary North, the content and meaning of which varies depending on the historical, social and political contexts of utterance and reception ^[15].

Understanding the "place" in the inextricable connection of the natural environment and human experience is the prerogative of ethnology (socio-cultural anthropology), based on the scientific method of "inclusive observation". This method involves immersing the researcher in the context of the everyday life of the studied community and identifying the forms of its reproduction in social relations and material objects. Until the middle of the 20th century, the academic status of anthropology was determined by its ability to identify deep cultural differences, achieving objectivity by building a methodological distance between the scientist ("Western" and industrial) and the "Other" ("indigenous" and primitive) community. The ethnographic "Other" is a conceptual model of communities that demonstrated signs of "revived archaism" and "past in the present" in industrial and colonial contexts, as well as combining spatial remoteness and historical "backwardness" from the Western world. At the end of the 20th century, the "anthropology of the modern" (anthropology of the contemporary, Paul Rabinov's term) was formed, focusing on the study of political, economic and social aspects of globalization. Social sciences critically rethink the rhetoric of describing peoples living "out of time on the edge of the ecumene," which used to record the "eternal present" of their customs in museums or archives. The object of ethnography acquires the right to demonstrate a variety of ways to "be in time", that is, to combine the practices of conservation and renovation of traditions of the recent, historical and prehistoric past.

B. Nichols ^{[1, pp. 67-68]} considers "ethnotopia" as an ideal situation of ethnographic observation, in which the distance between the researcher and the "Other" community he/she is studying is destroyed by the desire and ability of the anthropologist to comprehend another culture based on the universality of human experience. Visual anthropology combines the objectivity of photographic and film recording of observation data with artistic techniques for creating a documentary narrative that is open to interpretation by various audiences. Ethnotopias are created in the cinema of the 1900s and deconstructed in the experimental documentaries of the 1980s and 1990s (Jean Rouch, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Paula Gaitan), which destroys the stereotypes of ethnic Others, immersing the viewer in the visual context of the bodily and emotional experience of ethnic communities.

Catherine Russell ^{[2, pp. 77-78]} (Russel Catherine) uses the term "ethnotopia" to describe science fiction films of the early 20th century, in which the language of ethnography is used to give credibility to pictures of "other worlds". If an "ethnographic fairy tale" (B. Nichols' term) demonstrates to modern audiences a "primitive paradise" lost in the past, then futuristic ethnography gives weight to images of an incomprehensible future. Ethnotopias serve as a form of manifestation of retrotopias.Bauman), in which the image of the future is constructed on the basis of a number of ideas. These ideas include the rehabilitation of the tribal model of society, a return to the concept of ancestral/primitive self-awareness, predetermined by non-cultural or culture-resistant factors, and, in general, the rejection of current ideas (both in social science and society) about the most important, immutable, sine qua features of a civilized order ^{[3, p. 18]}.

In the post–industrial situation of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, local communities are forced to rethink themselves in the context of peculiar supermarket identities. If "culture" and "place" are politically significant, the forms of their commercialization acquire a nostalgic character. The tradition continues in the form of a simulacrum, the way of life is embodied in an ethnographic performance, and folklore is transformed into fake lore. Creative industries create ethnotopias in the forms of "local exoticism" reflecting the stereotypes of many different audiences. The economy of impressions encourages consumers' interest in discovering "unknown" art while traveling around the geographical periphery, represented as the creative bowels of states and regions.

The forms of artistic interaction of works of art with the material environment of their demonstration are designated in modern art by the concept of "site–specificity". Site–specific art has original techniques and technologies and combines many projects, from performances and museum installations to any display in a public space. In the framework of site-specific projects, the artist explores the "terrain" in communication with residents, whose image of the local landscape is based on the values of historical "authenticity" and the canonical inviolability of their cultural heritage. The technologies of bricolage, decontextualization, installation and collage applied to local ethnographic material, which are politically neutral for postmodern art, can be viewed by the community as an encroachment on their collective property, an attack on symbolic capital and an attempt to undermine the integrity of cultural identity. The artist has to pave the way between the trivial illustration of local subjects using the techniques of innovative genres (mediums) and the deconstruction of narratives of cultural memory and ethnic heritage that have developed in local conditions. This requires a long immersion in the life of the studied community, comparable to the field work of an anthropologist.

Relational art, "whose substratum is intersubjective relations, and the main theme is being together, the "meeting" of the viewer and the painting, the collective development of meaning ^{[8, p.7]}", also takes on the forms of "ethnotopia". Works of art are transformed into "ethnographic situations" necessary to identify the micro-utopias of everyday life and strategies for mimicking art technologies to everyday routines. The exhibition is considered by the curators, authors and the public as a place for "repairing broken ties" and the collective production of meanings of historical experience, the aesthetic forms of which provide a "safe" mode of resolving social conflicts.

Artistic ethnotopias are embodied by means of painting, sculpture, graphics, photography and cinema, the allegorical potential of which is revealed within the framework of modern practices of installations, performances, spatial interventions and community art. The formal analysis of visual ethnotopias is carried out at the iconological and compositional levels. The iconography of ethnotopias is represented by allegorical images of natural elements, totemic creatures and sacred places, the images of which combine the features of plants, animals and people. The composition of ethnotopias is based on blurring the boundaries of the figure and background, on the organic synthesis of elements into an ornamental sequence, which often demonstrates decentricity and rhizomaticity (examples of visual ethnotopias of Latin America are described in the publication "Arte por Excelencias" Access mode: https://www.arteporexcelencias.com/en/articles/ethnotopia # (accessed 02/18/2026)).

The methods of artistic exploration of circumpolar spaces and the forms of embodying polar aesthetics in cultural projects to improve the quality of life and competitiveness of northern communities are designated by the concept of "Arctic art" ^[23]. Contradictions in the interpretation of "art of the North" and "art of the Arctic" arise due to the difference between the two ways of understanding the polar territories in national and global contexts. The first method emphasizes the periphery of the art of the North in relation to the southern cultural and historical centers, typical even for such Arctic countries as Russia, Canada, the USA, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. The second method reveals the material, technological and symbolic self–sufficiency of art, reflecting the experience and identity of both indigenous peoples and other inhabitants of the circumpolar region.

T. Yokela ^[24] uses the concept of "new genres of Arctic art" to identify in the art complex of the northern regions those artistic practices that embody a connection with the land, population and traditions of the Arctic territories in projects that ensure the continuity of experience, knowledge and heritage of the North. Contemporary Arctic art includes such new genres as total installations, immersive and performative exhibitions, land art, process–based art, participatory art, and community art. The interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism of Artika's artistic practices is based on the general principles of site specificity, dialogue of traditions and novelty, ecological balance, and co–creation of local communities, authors, and the public.

Under the influence of globalization, northern communities show signs of hybridity, combining ethnic traditions with post-industrial technologies, as well as symbols of mass media in their lifestyle and identity ^[25]. The revival and preservation of the heritage of the past is proving to be too limited a measure to ensure the sustainable development of circumpolar cultures. The creative reinterpretation of ethnic traditions by the methods of modern art is embodied in works reflecting the multiplicity of images of the North and the dialogic nature of their interpretations, which have historically developed in world culture.

Ethnotopia of the Russian North: projects by Ulyana Podkorytova.

An example of site-specific contemporary art practices implemented in the European north of Russia (in the Arkhangelsk Region) in the 2010s – 2020s are the projects of the Arctic Institute of Arts (curated by Ekaterina Sharova and Kristina Dryagina) and the ARKA Center for Contemporary Art (curated by Kristina Dryagina) ^[26]. The result of their implementation were the exhibitions "Porato Basco" (Arkhangelsk, 2019), "Who is missing ..." (Arkhangelsk, 2021), "Divovanie. Discovery of the North" (Kargopol, Arkhangelsk, 2022-2023), featuring works by Russian artists Ulyana Podkorytova, Ustina Yakovleva, Anna Slobozhanina and Ulyana Kal.

The ethnotopia of the Northern Russian village was embodied in exhibition installations that combined real everyday objects, combinations of natural sounds (sound art), photo and video images that reflected the bodily experience of immersion in nature and the manual labor of female artists. Elements of ornament, epic poetry and musical folklore, man-made technologies of weaving, embroidery, ceramics and woodcarving were synthesized into art objects that "offered" the viewer to see, hear and physically be present in the atmosphere of "rural life". Videos of traditional crafts or ritual practices were shown on tablets located inside painted chests of the 19th century, or projected onto homespun canvases embroidered with ancient ornaments.

Tamotka is a multi—component project by Ulyana Podkorytova, implemented as a result of expeditions to the Arkhangelsk Region in 2019-2021 (Tamotka. Performance by Ulyana Podkorytova. Access mode: https://v-a-c.org/ges2/tamotka (accessed 02/18/2026)). In 2025, Tamotka will be presented in the form of art objects and installations, performance documentation and a video created by the artist on behalf of the V-A–C Foundation together with folk singers Ekaterina Zorina and Elena Ovodova, as well as composer Alexey Sysoev.

Ulyana Podkorytova uses modern art technologies to uncover the mutations that occur with Russian folklore and crafts as they move from the ceremonial context of "heritage" to the triviality of the tourist village and digital daily life of the early 21st century. Fragments of Russian fairy tales and epics, folklore tunes, crafts, and splint pictures are inlaid in her work into the fabric of post-industrial existence: fake news, online ritualism, online conspiracies, superhero fan clubs, and fantasy metaverses.

The mystical video art "Tamotka" embodies the universal scenario of the "hero's journey" in the North Russian symbolic space. The Russian North is perceived by Ulyana as a historical land of collective freedom and living traditions, where superheroes live among ordinary people. Quotes from Pomeranian writers Stepan Pisakhov and Boris Shergin are combined with fragments of a folklore epic into a story about a magical bird woman living at the intersection of the real and computer worlds. She lays digital eggs and disperses a swarm of mosquitoes from the "fragments of the code." The fairy tale is voiced by a female voice, whose electronic modulations enhance the effect of rhythmic monotony of speech, borrowed by Ulyana from computer programs for meditation. The heroine of the video must cast an old Pomeranian spell to summon the wind and restore the flow of a dried–up river, an allegory of the information flow of modern times.

The wooden ploughshare armor worn by Ulyana Podkorytova on the stage of Tamotka resembles Helio Oitichik's transobjects – ephemeral phenomena that accentuate the transversality of ethnographic materiality visible from the outside and experienced from the inside. Ulyana Podkorytova describes the creation of "armor" as follows: "Inspired by the aspen tiles that cover the domes, I decided to make a costume resembling the wooden armor of an ancient warrior. In it, I walked along the poisoned sea, but my armor was soft and malleable, it could not protect me from the global catastrophes that are currently taking place in our developed society" (Sokhareva T. Ulyana Podkorytova: "I like to invent my own mythology and at the same time talk about universal values." Published on the ArtGid platform on 22.02.2022. Access mode: https://artguide.com/posts/2396 (accessed 02/18/2026))

The Pomeranian word "tamotka" means "somewhere out there", in an invisible and unknown space. In Ulyana Podkorytova's project, the visual and sound landscape is a projection of utopian timelessness, where new technologies and traditional knowledge complement each other. In the curated texts and interviews, the artist describes her experience of traveling to the northern villages as an immersion in the "shifter world", the "territory of Sleeping Beauty", a surreal experience of the "otherworldly". She says: "in Arkhangelsk... I had a mental fog: it seemed to me that seraphim and flotillas should be flying around. I didn't notice anything around me, no Soviet architecture, no devastation" (Sokhareva T. Ulyana Podkorytova: "I like to invent my own mythology and at the same time talk about universal values." Published on the ArtGid platform on 22.02.2022. Access mode: https://artguide.com/posts/2396 (accessed 02/18/2026)).

A visual allegory of the "other world" is the footage from the film depicting the abandoned fishing village of Shoina, located at the confluence of the Barents and White Seas. Its ancient buildings – houses, temples, and even crosses in the cemetery - were almost completely covered with sand from the bottom of the sea. The wooden architecture of the Russian village has acquired in the work of Ulyana Podkorytova the scale of the prehistoric monumentality of the ruins, which irreversibly merge with the natural landscape into an allegorical ethnotopia of the North.

Ulyana Podkorytova uses folklore in its broad anthropological sense as a basis for presenting the Russian North as an allegory of "heritage", which embodies the counter-narrative of the Soviet industrialization of local communities and the museification of traditional cultures. For the artist, "folklore is not a bear, a balalaika, or a cranberry, but a kind of anthropological knowledge that is connected not only with the past, but also with the present" ^[27]. The originality of W.'s work The subcortical approach is to use artistic technologies that allow "folklore" ideas to interact with relevant mediums in the context of historical gaps in Russian modernization.

Ethnotopias of the Canadian North in Meryl McMaster's autoethnographies.

In the photographs of the artist Meryl McMaster, mystical figures dressed in fantastic outfits freeze in monumental poses in front of breathtaking landscapes. The amazed viewer is fascinated by an unprecedented sight, as if accidentally opening a portal to another world. The artist from Ottawa (Canada) creates self-portraits that reveal her ancestral connection with the tribes of the Nêhiyaw (Cree Indians), British and Danish immigrants to Canada. Meryl's staged photographs tell the story of the difficulty of acquiring an identity based on the connection of collective and personal history with her native land.

The project "As Vast as the Sky" was implemented in 2019, but its constituent works are still being shown at international and national exhibitions. This is the artist's narrative about the connections with the land of Canada, woven in her family memory. She traveled all over the country in search of places where she could relive the stories of her ancestors and find artistic forms to embody the "voice" of those whose culture had not been "heard" before. Meryl walked along the ancient roads of Canada and studied the narratives of those peoples who crossed these lands before her. She listened to the stories of elders from her tribe, relatives, friends, and researched ethnographic materials. Then she revived their retelling in the set design of a photo shoot that combined different time layers of culture.

All the photos of the project are self–portraits of Meryl, but, according to her, "each representation is theatrical and reveals various new aspects of personality that I did not know about before" (Samuel C. Interview with Meryl Mc Master "As Vast as the Sky". Publication on the Lens Culture online resource Access mode: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/meryl-mcmaster-as-immense-as-the-sky (accessed 02/18/2026). Each image is born as a performance production, the construction of costumes and props, the recreation of a folklore narrative, which acquire visual integrity in the final version of the portrait. Meryl makes fancy outfits, exquisite hats, masks, and jewelry from publicly available materials such as cardboard, wire, feathers, bells, ribbons, and paper, connecting them in an unusual way each time. Native American costumes for ritual gatherings of Pow Wow and tribal dances often serve as a source of inspiration. The different shades of blue in the outfit remind of the sky and water and symbolize the artist's ancestral connection with nature. Red manifests itself in different ways in self-portraits, as it reflects the richness of the experience of belonging to family and clan, as well as the special mission of passing on tribal knowledge to the next generations.

The medium of photography was initially endowed with the colonial status of control over the indigenous population, since it recorded their anthropometric and ethnographic characteristics in forms that often reproduced their stereotypes as primitive and incapable of developing communities. Meryl McMaster's heroines are dressed in pseudo-ethnographic outfits embodying poetic imagination, rather than the historical appearance of Native Americans captured in the projects of "white" photographers of the 19th century. As an author, she controls every aspect of the processes of disincarnation of "typical" Indians, who made up the repertoire of roles of "noble savages" and "living relics" in the popular culture of the XIX - XX centuries.

The artist transforms the technique of appropriation of visual images of mass culture, used by Cindy Sherman in the project "Stills from an unnamed film". Meryl also puts on masks, poses and positions herself in the scenery, like the "Hollywood" characters of Sherman. However, the effect of the "frame" in the photographic images of the "progenitors" from the project "As Immense as the Sky" indicates not only the absence of visible models of tribal identity in the media, but the fundamental impossibility of their appearance in a situation of cultural inequality. Meryl McMaster's photographic portraits are peculiar patchwork autobiographies of the artist, which connect the author's multiple ethnic and tribal identity with its pillars – mythological images, landscapes of Canada and the subject environment of her ancestors.

Meryl McMaster's photographic portraits create ethnotopias of the Canadian North, in which images of indigenous peoples not only evoke nostalgic feelings of the lost pre-colonial North American Eden. The combination of decorative elements of a traditional costume and the poster design of a staged photo against the background of a natural landscape becomes an act of symbolic resistance to the stereotypes of the North, which represent its space as a fantastic past embodied in a utopian future.

Conclusions.

Artistic ethnotopias combine the natural landscape and everyday life of the inhabitants of circumpolar territories into a holistic image based on the symbolic system of the "imaginary North". A distinctive feature of the ethnotopias represented in the practices of modern art is how they combine, arrange themselves in space, embody themselves in material form and interact with representations reflecting the dynamics of the external and internal vision of the North. An external observer perceives circumpolar territories through the prism of stereotypes formed by the contexts of colonization, industrialization, and cultural industries. From the inside, the North is a place filled with the individual experience of many communities, the symbolic meaning of which is comprehended in the dialogue of traditions and modernity.

Ethnotopic Arctic art projects are embodied in such works as installations, immersive and performative exhibitions, land art, process–based art, and participatory art. The site–specific nature of the artistic practices of the North determines their interdisciplinarity, in which the techniques of photography, video, crafts, sculpture and music are combined with the techniques of ready–made, collage, installation and detourage. The authenticity of the northern experience and its connection with the memory of the place is revealed by the artists in a dialogue with local communities, which involves such forms as participation in rituals and rituals, mastering the techniques of manual labor and crafts, as well as immersion in the natural rhythms of life support. The embodiment of place as an active social category occurs in artistic ethnotopias of the North when they reveal forgotten stories, visualize hidden hierarchies of narratives of belonging, and reveal political, economic, and natural challenges to the sustainable development of territories.

The study of artistic ethnotopias makes it possible to identify the features of the representation of the North in a dialogue between local and global authors, art institutions, creative industries and audiences. A comparative analysis of the projects of contemporary art of the North, which is created in various national, ethnic and regional contexts, allows us to determine how the global processes of modernization and commercialization are interpreted using the unique languages and traditions of local communities.

The article is published in the version approved by the reviewers (after receiving a positive review recommending the manuscript for publication) with corrections made by the author (after receiving the editor’s comments, if any).
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