Listening to the Land: Tromsø
Exhibition
1–3 November 2026
Opening: 1 November, 18:00
Small Projects, Grønnegata 23 9008, Tromsø, Norway
Visits by appointment: Olga Shirokostup, shirokostup@gmail.co
With works by Olga Kisseleva and Johanna Sandels, in collaboration with researchers Victoria Miles and Olga Zaslavskaya, and recordings by the workshop participants
Curated by Olga Shirokostup
Can heat be heard? This three-day exhibition presents the first results of the Listening to the Land art & science workshop held in Tromsø on 30 October. Guided by satellite heat maps of the city, participants walked two routes: one from the streets towards the hidden waterfront, the other from vegetation towards concrete and infrastructure. Along the way, they recorded sound as they moved between warmer and colder zones, listening for the thresholds where one soundscape gives way to another.
Shown as works in progress, the exhibition brings together two interconnected projects developed within ARCA. Zoom In / Zoom Out Tromsø (2025), by Olga Kisseleva in collaboration with researchers Victoria Miles and Olga Zaslavskaya, translates satellite data on surface temperature, built structures and materials into images of the city's hidden microclimates. The new work for Listening to the Land, created by Johanna Sandels and Olga Kisseleva in collaboration with Victoria Miles and the workshop participants, adds a sonic dimension to these same heat maps: a soundscape composed from the field recordings made along the routes.
The soundscape is presented alongside Carrier (2026), an existing work by Johanna Sandels that predates this collaboration: a hand-crocheted copper mesh reworked from a Very Low Frequency antenna once used to record electromagnetic signals possibly linked to the aurora borealis. During the workshop, Carrier also served as one of the listening tools, connected to a portable recorder. Together, the works explore how urban infrastructures and environmental change shape the many rhythms that coexist in an Arctic city, and how art can make perceptible what usually goes unnoticed.
Rather than treating sound as information to be extracted, the exhibition approaches listening as a practice of attention and relation. Drawing on Dylan Robinson's critique of "hungry listening", it asks how we might listen to a landscape that is itself changing, without immediately seeking to measure, interpret or possess it. Visitors are invited to follow the routes between the city's thermal zones and to listen for themselves.
The exhibition is part of the Co-Creative Community Workshop "Biocultural Heritage and Climate Adaptation in Arctic Cities" and the artistic programme of ARCA, and contributes to the ongoing project Listening to the Land.
About ARCA
ARCA (Biocultural Heritage in Arctic Cities as a Potential Resource for Climate Adaptation, 2024–2027) is a Belmont Forum-funded consortium of social and natural scientists and artists from the University of Maryland (USA), the University of Vienna (Austria), the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (Norway) and the Art & Science International Institute (France). Its central question is how biocultural heritage embodied in Arctic urban green spaces and natural landscapes can serve as a resource for climate adaptation.
Contributors
Olga Kisseleva is an artist whose research-based practice brings together contemporary art, science and technology to address ecological transformation. She founded the Art&Science Laboratory at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, MoMA and ZKM, among others, and is the artistic lead of ARCA at the Art & Science International Institute (ASCII).
Victoria Miles is a scientist at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC), Norway, working with satellite observations of Arctic environments.
Johanna Sandels is an artist who graduated from the Art Academy in Tromsø in 2025. Her practice centres on translation, treating sound as equivalent to language: she builds recorders, speakers and installations, and sets rules for performances that use repetition to dissect sound and meaning.
Olga Shirokostup is a curator, researcher and educator born on the Kola Peninsula and based in France. Her practice connects artistic research, archival work and exhibition-making in the European North. She is a curator within ARCA at ASCII and co-curated Arctic Art Forum V (Oslo, 2026).
Olga Zaslavskaya is a philosopher and researcher at the Art & Science International Institute (ASCII).