Mhairi Killin and Floortje Zonneveld
Left: Mhairi Killin, right: Floortje Zonneveld
In Residence: January - April 2026
Artists Mhairi Killin and Floortje Zonneveld will be in residence at Artica for six weeks, working on the project From the Mouths of the Caves, Listening to Hear Another Island’s Song. Both artists share a love of remote island locations, recognising that these places provide an opportunity to step deeper into the experience and challenges of global environmental change.
The project explores how knowledge can be exchanged across island environments through visual art, sound, and community engagement. Drawing inspiration from two elemental spaces – an ice cave in Svalbard and a sea cave on the Isle of Iona, Scotland – the project uses the materiality and symbolism of these sites as starting points for thinking with and through island ecologies.
During their residency, Mhairi and Floortje will work across science, art, and storytelling to connect children in Longyearbyen with their peers on the islands of Iona and Mull, inviting them to look at how Scottish and Arctic Island communities are linked by shared and dynamically changing oceanic systems and the unfolding narratives of climate change. By exploring ecological systems, cultural identity, and language - particularly Gaelic and the diverse languages of Svalbard - the project aims to amplify young voices often unheard in environmental discourse, building a living archive of shared island knowledge for exhibition in Svalbard and Scotland.
Mhairi and Floortje will be joined by Siri Granum Carson, a Professor of applied ethics at NTNU and co-chair for EOREA, the European Ocean Research and Education Alliance. Siri has broad experience from transdisciplinary ocean research as director of the thematic research NTNU Oceans and chair for the National committee for the UN Ocean Decade. Through the collaboration with Mhairi and Floortje, she will explore the topic of how to move from ocean knowledge to ocean understanding through the connection of art and science, seen in relation to the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) She will also connect Mhairi and Floortje with the research community of NTNU and UNIS.
Mhairi Killin is a visual artist from the Isle of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Her work examines the fragile relationships between land, sea, humans, and other beings, challenging perceptions of islands as remote or marginal. Through drawing, print, sculpture, and film, she explores how belief systems - religious, mythic, and socio-political - shape both physical and metaphysical landscapes. Her recent collaborative project On Sonorous Seas brings together voices from art, science, and poetry to question the militarisation of Scotland’s seas and its impact on marine life. Killin has exhibited internationally and undertaken residencies across Scotland, Scandinavia and Canada. In 2024, she received Creative Scotland funding for a residency at Artica Svalbard, nominated by OCA Oslo.
Floortje Zonneveld is an artist and expedition leader working with time-based and participatory projects across remote Nordic regions, including Svalbard, Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. She collaborates with communities to re-explore their landscapes through shared storytelling, transforming local experiences into immersive artistic narratives. As a certified Arctic Nature Guide, Floortje has spent years leading journeys through the polar environment, using creative engagement to strengthen connections between people, place, and ecological change. She is a longtime collaborator with Artica Svalbard, having led multiple community-driven projects, including Shadowing Without a Sunset, Future Community Garden and The Slow Adventure: A Year Without Trees. Her work consistently seeks to bridge disciplines, inviting artists, scientists, and communities into a shared process of exploration.
Siri Granum Carson is Professor of applied ethics at NTNU. With a background in philosophy of language and agency, her research today circles around on the social responsibility and sustainability of (business as well as research) organization. She teaches research ethics, business ethics and professional ethics across all levels and fields of NTNU, from students to rectorate, from technologists to artists. As the director of NTNU Oceans (2020-2024), a strategic research areas at NTNU, her job was to “connect the dots” between different parts of ocean research and technology development, encouraging that more of the research and innovation take place in the intersections between disciplines and sectors. From 2020-2025, she was project leader for AFINO (Ansvarlig Forskning og Innovasjon i Norge) focusing on how to develop skills for responsible research and innovation through transdisciplinary collaboration. She just completed her second and last term as chair of the National committee for the UN Ocean Decade, and is co-chair for EOREA, the European Ocean Research and Education Alliance.
This residency is supported by:
TIDAL ArtS, The European Union and Sparebankstiftelsen
