Pan-ArcticVision is an international social and cultural event that describes itself as "a Eurovision for the Arctic".[1] Pan-ArcticVision has live musical contributions from the circumpolar North (the Arctic), and arranges televotes among the public. The event is broadcast internationally, and is loosely modeled on the well known Eurovision song contest.[2] [3]
Different from Eurovision, the Pan-ArcticVision questions the concept of a musical competition, and asks the public to decide whether or not there should be a more than one winner. Furthermore, this is not a competition between creators (unlike Eurovision); it is a competition between communities and artists who both create and perform their own works.[4] The Pan-ArcticVision has participants not from nation states, but from different northern and Arctic territories, displaying local Arctic flags. The two first editions have included participants from Alaska, The Yukon, Nunavut, Kalaallit Nunaat, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Sápmi, Nord-Norge (Northern Norway), Norrbotten in Norra Sverige (Northern Sweden) and Pohjois-Suomi (Northern Finland) — in addition to a Russian Arctic Exile participant.[5] Through this, the event aims to strengthen circumpolar, Pan-Arctic contact,[6] [7] and invites the public to consider questions of sovereignty, borders and nation states.
In April 2024, it was announced that the second edition of Pan-ArcticVision would go live from Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat, in October 2024, in cooperation with the culture centre Katuaq and Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation, KNR.[8] [9] [10] There was an open call in several territories to find participants for the event.
The first edition of the Pan-ArcticVision was arranged in Vadsø, Northern Norway, a town of ca 6000 people located on the brink of the European mainland. The event was hosted by the local festival Varangerfestivalen. The public voted to that the competition should have multiple winners, not just one. In addition, there was a prize for "the place in the Arctic that really needs a prize and deserves to host the next edition of the Pan-ArcticVision". This prize was won by Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland).[11] This implied that the next event would be arranged in Nuuk.[12]
Prize winners 2023:[13]
Other notable participants of Pan-ArcticVision 2023 included Byron Nicholai from Alaska.
The second edition of Pan-ArcticVision 2024 was broadcast live from Katuaq culture centre in Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) Oct 12, by Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation. The public vote to select a host community for the next edition was won by Nunavut, the self-governing territory of the Canadian Inuit.[16] [17]
Other notable participants of Pan-ArcticVision 2024 included Qacung Stephen Blanchett from Alaska, know from the band Pamyua, and Mirja Palo from Northern Sweden.
The Pan-ArcticVision, unlike many other international cultural events of the north, is not only including the euro-arctic region, or the Barents Region, or the Nordics, or the American Arctic or the international Inuit community; Pan-ArcticVision is including the whole circumpolar north and is part of establishing Pan-Arcticism as a concept in the same way as f.ex Pan-Africanism.
Pan-ArcticVision is initiated, financed and run by Nordting - the Northern Assembly, and led by artistic director and entrepreneur Amund Sjølie Sveen, who claims the event is challenging a worldview where the centre (the capitals of nation states) is the starting point.[20]