When we discuss sociocultural learning in the communal settings, the place and its meanings become essential. Place, locality and place-specifity has played an im-portant role in all of my studied cases, and I see it as an inseparable element in sociocultural learning. When cultural sustainability is considered in educational settings, there is a need to understand locality and the sense of place that the com-munities possess and possibly share. Understanding place as an ecological, social and cultural entity refers especially to the perspective of socially produced space in geography as well as the view of place as personally experienced (Hyvärinen, 2014, p. 10). Places are layered, socially constructed locations, filled with ideologies, human histories and memories (see Lippard, 1997). Our perceptions of places are influenced by the people and culture connected to the place. According to Massey (2005), places are constantly changing depending on the time and the experiencer.
Hence, perceptions of place have no pre-given collective identity but are formed in continuous negotiations of the here and now (Massey, 2005). We change along with the changing places, and places change both through people’s actions and on their own (Hyry-Beihammer et al., 2014).
Place-based development relies on capacity and a degree of authority at the local level (Vodden et al., 2015). Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari (2019) discussed place-based knowledge production as one of the combining features of Indigenous knowledge. They claimed the heritage of previous generations and their experience and knowledge of specific locations were transmitted to the new generation as a central element for place-based knowledge. It is gained by seeing, sensing, smelling and hearing and by being in forests, on paths, on a river or lake (Virtanen & Seuru-järvi-Kari, 2019). This resonates with Tim Ingold’s (1993) writings on landscape, where he stressed the importance of dwelling in the landscape in order to fully internalize it.
Besides the Indigenous place-based knowledge, different regions share similar cultural habits related to the place due to, for instance, its climatic reality. Huh-marniemi and Jokela (2020b) used the concept of Arctic ecocultures as an umbrella for different kinds of knowledge systems related to place. In ecoculture, regional ecology and culture are interconnected and consist of location and its residents, the environment and community sharing and living together. Also, local and regional traditions, beliefs, cultural heritages and tacit knowledge are counted as part of the ecocultures (Huhmarniemi & Jokela, 2020b).
Place-specificity is also an essential element in contemporary art’s situational thinking. Art theorist Grant Kester (2004) pointed out that one prerequisite for con-temporary art’s dialogic, contextual and situated activity is that it is focused on the participants’ own environment and recognize it in their framework. In particular, community art and environmental art emphasize the ties of art to people’s everyday activities, events and places. In education, this can be called situational learning.
Here the focus is on the learning situation and the transition from a teacher-student relationship to a student’s relationship with the surrounding world (Granö et al., 2018). Jokela (2008) emphasized that place-specificity and situationality in art and learning does not mean emphasizing nationalism through the spirit of a homeland, but rather, it is a way of looking and understanding people’s connections, spontane-ous networks and common aspirations as a counterpart to excess individuality, con-sumption and globalization. Jokela (2013) continued that regionally relevant art ed-ucation focuses on providing tools for the local actors to describe their own culture and analyse it from the inside and break the long colonialist situation in the North.
This follows David A. Gruenewald’s (2003) model of critical pedagogy of place, where the decolonizing agenda of critical pedagogy is combined with place-based education aiming for ecological understanding. This model is meant to promote the ability to embrace the experience of being a human in connection with oth-ers, and it highlights nature and our responsibility towards it (Gruenewald, 2003).
In education, such necessary turns usually take place slowly. Only recently, almost two decades after Gruenewald’s writing, the national curricula in all levels of the Finnish education system are starting to recognise the ethos of critical pedagogy of place. Regionally relevant and place-specific art education in higher education
should build on and utilize the environmental and sociocultural dimensions of the context of learning in order to develop context-sensitive and practice-based meth-ods of working.
Place-specificity in education can be exercised in multiple ways. In our depart-ment at the UoL, it has been a value basis for the whole developdepart-ment of the degree programmes. Teaching is constructed to demonstrate the northern features, and the students execute, for instance, place research as part of such studies that include working with communities or other stakeholders outside the university (see Jokela et al., 2005). This is particularly essential in the project studies both in the art edu-cation and the AAD studies. In our articles with Hanna-Riina Vuontisjärvi (2018a, 2018b), we have more thoroughly discussed place research as a tool for well-de-signed processes yielding to permanent positive effects. Place research is basically the first step students take in their projects. This is based on the notion that through real investigation with local people and familiarization with related literature, the students gain authentic understanding of the place and are hence better informed to design more sustainable actions.
Through dialogue between different viewers, the widening of perspectives of the place becomes possible. Kester (2004) points out that the visiting artist (or art ed-ucator) may well recognize relationships and connections to which the locals have become inured to, while the local collaborators will challenge the visiting artist’s preconceptions of the community and his or her function as an artist. What emerg-es is a new set of insights, generated at the intersection of both perspectivemerg-es and catalysed through the collaborative production (Kester, 2004).
ASAD members Mette Gårdvik, Wenche Sørmo and Karin Stoll, who work in teacher education at the Nord University of Norway, have developed interdiscipli-nary outdoor education that gives another perspective to place-specific communal art education (see Gårdvik et al., 2014; Stoll, Gårdvik, & Sørmo, 2018; Stoll, Sør-mo, & Gårdvik, 2018). They educate teacher students, and the outdoor activities of-ten involve the local elementary schools. Combining art, crafts and natural sciences, they work on projects that are strongly related to their northern coastal region’s situations, places and culture. One example of these is their extensive educational work against Norway’s massive coastal problem of marine debris, which washes to their shores from the Atlantic Ocean. Their projects have included lectures on the influences of plastic waste to the water systems and air, and their working through communal and environmental art deepens the participants’ relationship in caring for the shores and environment (Stoll, Sørmo, & Gårdvik, 2018). Place-specificity in their processes is connected to the idea of holistic learning, sensory experiences, and bodily and emotional impressions. Gårdvik et al. (2014) stressed that in holistic outdoor education, students learn about the studied multilayered phenomena easi-er and gain a deepeasi-er undeasi-erstanding of how they are connected with nature.