North Dakota: Icelandic Exchange

Two girls from Iceland examine a camera before photographing their surroundings. Photo by Elvar Beneditktsson

The North Dakota Council on the Arts (NDCA) recently sponsored a youth photography exchange between rural communities in North Dakota and Iceland. Many families of Icelandic heritage reside in northeastern North Dakota, creating one of the largest Icelandic communities outside of Iceland. NDCA supports international residency programs that encourage intercultural understanding through arts learning, with a particular focus on youth and schools. In this year’s program, K-12 students in Cavalier, North Dakota, and Laugalandsskoli, Iceland, used photography and drawing to create artworks documenting important features of their homes and communities. The works were exhibited at schools in both North Dakota and Iceland. In classroom learning units organized around the exhibits, students explored similarities and differences in their family events, food traditions, clothing and other features of daily life. Activities took place under the guidance of a professional photographer and artist-in-residence who traveled to both sites. This exchange was the latest activity in NDCA’s ongoing International Artist in Schools Exchange program, a 10-year collaboration with the Icelandic Communities Association. In April 2013, a teacher and artist from Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri Comprehensive College in Iceland will travel to Cavalier to conduct a residency with students. For more information, contact NDCA Arts in Education Director Rebecca Engelman.