Art also acts as a bridge between Indigenous and other perspectives, creating a meeting place for dialogue, shared learning, and relationship-building. Centering Indigenous values of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility, the session highlights how Indigenous knowledge and ingenuity offer solutions to environmental and social challenges. Land-based education, intergenerational storytelling, and community initiatives guide transformative learning, public engagement, and creative problem-solving, inspiring just and sustainable futures.
The 90-minute session features a visually rich presentation led by Indigenous knowledge holders, followed by discussion and exchange. Art’s transformative power spans multiple forms: it connects across cultures, communicates complex ideas, builds trust and collaboration, creates informal spaces for dialogue, and inspires education, advocacy, and action.
Convenors: One Arctic / Museum of Contemporary Circumpolar Art (MCCA) and Global Indigenous Dialogue (GID)
This presentation delves into Indigenous holistic worldviews, emphasising the profound spiritual, cultural and ecological interconnectedness that binds humans, animals, plants, water and the land into a single, living system. Rather than viewing biodiversity as a catalogue of species or a collection of extractable resources, Indigenous perspectives understand the natural world as a network of reciprocal relationships in which each being carries responsibilities and contributes to the wellbeing of the whole. This relational understanding positions Indigenous knowledge not merely as an alternative viewpoint but as an essential guide for responding to contemporary environmental challenges, climate disruptions and the ongoing loss of ecological diversity.
The talk explores how Indigenous communities nurture relationships with the land through the daily practice of mentally and spiritually acknowledging their non-human relatives, through seasonal activities, intergenerational learning and through spiritual traditions that honour the land as a living relative. These relationships are reinforced by stories, ceremonies and teachings that convey ecological ethics and reaffirm the community’s role as caretakers. By highlighting creative, land-based learning - such as traditional harvesting, craftwork and observation-based ecological education - the presentation demonstrates how these practices support cultural continuity, strengthen local decision-making and restore a sense of balance and shared responsibility.
Interactive components of the session invite participants to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing through ceremony, reflective exercises and collaborative storytelling. These activities model how relational thinking encourages deeper awareness, humility and respect for both human and non-human relatives. They also illustrate how Indigenous approaches support community wellbeing by fostering belonging, revitalising cultural connections and promoting forms of sustainability that centre reciprocity rather than exploitation.
Ultimately, the presentation shows that Indigenous knowledge systems offer more than environmental insight - they provide grounded, ethical frameworks for living well with the natural world. By embracing these perspectives, communities and institutions can cultivate more just, compassionate and sustainable futures that honour the interconnectedness at the heart of life on Earth.
How to cite: Cardinal, L. and Faber, D.: Living Reciprocity: Indigenous Knowledge for Relational Ecological Balance and Community Wellbeing, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-690, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-690, 2026.
This presentation explores the traditional worldview of the Indigenous Sámi people, who have lived for thousands of years across the vast Arctic region of northern Europe. Central to Sámi knowledge is a holistic understanding of the world as an interconnected, living entity in which humans, animals, spirits and the land are bound together in continuous relationship. Through art, storytelling and embodied cultural practices, this worldview becomes visible as a dynamic system of reciprocity, respect and shared responsibility.
The presentation highlights how expressive forms such as duodji (traditional craft), symbolic imagery and narrative heritage reveal layers of ecological and spiritual meaning. The powerful combination of the Yoik - ancient chanting unique to the Sámi - and the Meavrresgárri, the sacred shaman drum, once functioned as vital tools for navigating both the physical and the spiritual realms. These practices created bridges between everyday life and the unseen world, enabling healers, visionaries and community members to communicate with spirits, honour the land and maintain balance within the community. The drum’s rhythmic patterns, colours and symbols were maps of cosmology, while the Yoik expressed identity, memory and emotional connection to people, places and non-human beings.
For centuries, however, these cultural expressions were condemned and forcefully suppressed by church and state authorities, who banned the use of drums, outlawed spiritual practices and sought to erase the Sámi way of seeing and being in the world. This attempted silencing lasted for more than 400 years and left deep cultural scars. Yet, despite the intensity of this repression, Sámi knowledge systems have endured - carried forward in families, safeguarded in oral traditions and embedded in the landscape itself.
Today, the revival of Yoik, the re-creation of shaman drums and a renewed appreciation for traditional ecological knowledge offer profound hope. They illustrate the resilience of Indigenous Peoples and their ongoing commitment to cultural revitalization, self-determination and the protection of the Arctic environment.
How to cite: Kåven, J. M.: Echoes of Interconnection: Sámi Knowledge, Ceremony and Cultural Revitalisation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-700, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-700, 2026.
This presentation highlights art’s unique capacity to open meaningful dialogue from Indigenous holistic perspectives. At the Museum of Contemporary Circumpolar Art (MCCA), artworks are approached not as isolated objects but as living expressions of relationships between people, ancestors, animals, lands, waters, air and the wider environment. Exhibitions position artworks in conversation with the artists’ own voices, supported by workshops, film programs and direct encounters with knowledge holders.
Through these experiences, participants are invited into a relational understanding of biodiversity as a living, reciprocal connection among land, beings and community. Art becomes a shared, culturally grounded space where Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews meet, fostering learning rooted in respect, responsibility, humility and relationality.
Central to this work is the motto “Art as an Icebreaker for Dialogue”, which guides One Arctic/MCCA’s shift from collection to connection, ownership to relationship and display to dialogue. In this approach, the curator becomes a facilitator whose role is to create spaces for reciprocity, ethical engagement and meaningful exchange. The transformative power of art enables this shift: it connects across cultures, communicates complex ideas and opens informal, trust-building environments where dialogue can unfold naturally. These shared creative encounters build collaboration, inspire education, advocacy and action, and unlock the creativity needed to envision more sustainable futures.
By centering Indigenous leadership and land-based practice, the session illustrates how creative engagement deepens ecological awareness and supports community-driven approaches to sustainability. Rather than presenting environmental challenges solely through scientific or policy-oriented frameworks, the work emphasises interconnectedness, lived experience and the responsibilities that emerge from being embedded within ecosystems.
Drawing on One Arctic/MCCA’s curatorial practice, dialogue facilitation and long-term partnerships across the circumpolar North, the session demonstrates how museums, cultural and other memory institutions can serve as platforms for knowledge exchange and the revitalisation of diverse ways of knowing in the face of global environmental change. Ultimately, it advocates for the role of Indigenous-led, creative methodologies as essential contributions to global biodiversity conversations.
How to cite: Cerny, M. and Cerny Ehtesham, N.: Art as an Icebreaker for Dialogue: Creative Pathways to Relational Biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-687, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-687, 2026.
