Sensoria of absence, distance, and neglect.

Studies in Remoteness does foundational theoretical, artistic, and historical work toward initiating a new field of interdisciplinary research in critical remoteness studies. To unpack the geopolitical, environmental, and cultural dimensions of ‘remoteness’ – particularly, in the circumpolar North – we center Indigenous scholarship and critiques of extractive colonialism, as well as artistic and embodied approaches, in a series of six symposia across the Baltic rim between 2026-2028.

The project turns its attention to regional peripheries or cartographic borderlands between nation states; the residential areas of Indigenous and minoritized communities; historical testimonies and lacunae; sub-cultural meeting spots, or your neighbour’s kitchen.… Theorizing modernity by turning to its so-called outskirts, the project inquires sensoria of absence, distance, and neglect that have blossomed along the frontiers of colonial empires and sedimented among the margins of modern infrastructures of “global connectivity”. With lingering attention, Studies in Remoteness intends to unsettle conditions of obscuring or exoticising – resolutely acknowledging histories, topographies and epistemologies with an eye to how these might come into “intense proximity”, as coined by Okwui Enwezor.

Studies in Remoteness is coordinated within the Nordic Summer University by the scholar Lindsey Drury and artistic researcher Helena Hildur W., in cooperation with project members Tinka Harvard, Shiluinla Jamir, and Essi Nuutinen, in cooperation with Karolina Enquist Källgren (Stockholm University/Nordic Summer University), Stéphanie Barillé (Nordic Summer University), among others.