Jan Wejdmark, Social entrepreneur, Founder of Arctic Highways, chair of Meeting place Granö

A new way point on our journey

This exhibition will introduce you to twelve Indigenous artists from Sápmi, Canada, and Alaska. They invite us to join them on their spiritual and artistic quest to find answers and a sense of community. With their guidance, we are able to follow a journey along an Arctic motorway of culture and everyday life, that stretches from the past to the future, without passing a single border.

This exhibition of Indigenous art will be touring North America and Europe from 2022 to 2025. It will then be put on permanent display in Sweden, in the town of Granö, in Väster­botten county.

It is a natural choice for Arctic Highways to settle as a permanent exhibition in Granö in 2025. This town is situated by the shores of the 470-km-long Ume River, which has always been a natural summer and winter trail between the coast and the mountainous region. People have travelled unbounded up and down the river for centuries. This is where Sámi culture and Swedish rural culture have always met for trade and commerce. Ancient historical sources describe the midwinter- ”Lapp-fests” that were held here. As early as the 1500s, Swedish kings knew the town of Granö as an important meeting place. Even today, the Sámi herd their reindeer to the town for the winter pasture.

The small town of Granö is now becoming one of the most important places to meet the history, culture, and nature of northern Europe. Furthermore, through the creation of a global exhibition for Indigenous art – Arctic Highways – we will bring people together, laying the foundation for an international ­Indigenous peoples’ stage that is unique in the world.

Jan Wejdmark