AMASS-AMAS-WEIRD: Community-based art education project in the Sápmi area, Finland

This chapter analyses a community-based art education project developing a multidisciplinary activity week, taking place in Utsjoki school centre in the province of Lapland, the Sápmi region, Finland. Sámi are the only Indigenous peoples within the area of the European Union. Sápmi native region is located across the northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden, Russia and Finland. A group of six art education students and the project leader from the University of Lapland worked together with the local pupils, students and teachers; the whole school took part in the activities.
The project's objective was to develop the participants' relationship to their surroundings and to the local area, broaden the way they picture their surroundings, their own culture and how they place themselves within it. We used an arts-based action research approach to explore contemporary arts possibilities for increasing the dialogue between different school subjects and crossing the boundaries when focusing on cultural competence, interaction and expression between Sámi Indigenous culture and other local cultures. Findings show evidence of an improvement in combining the knowledge and skills provided by different school subjects to form meaningful wholes through art. The project developed the school culture by promoting instructions with an integrative, art-based approach.