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Multispecies stories of Vardø: an Arctic place in change

The speed of climate change calls our attention towards the life forms on this warming Earth – human and beyond. In this article, I aim to contribute to the conversation about how we co-exist by presenting multispecies ‘compost stories’ of the Norwegian town Vardø, which seems to be well underway in a post-Arctic shift. Vardø has received much attention over the past decade from researchers and artists. However, efforts to describe this socially and historically dynamic place are often concentrated on the built heritage and primarily human history. With a newly built community greenhouse as my point of departure, I unfold various multispecies stories connected to the concepts of demarcation, domestication, change and acceleration that I encountered during a summer in Vardø. Curious about the hidden stories of Vardø, I ask how to remain loyal to a place’s history while incorporating new stories that just keep accelerating in their relevance.

Rasmussen, I. 2023. 'Multispecies stories of Vardø: an Arctic place in change'. Landscape Research. Available: https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2023.2248019