ANSEL – Access the North with the Speed of Light

The cross-border ANSEL project aims to enhance accessibility to cultural expression and education in the sparsely populated regions of Finland, Sweden, and Norway. By tackling obstacles like long distances and a scarcity of skilled personnel, the project fosters innovative collaborations among organizations and professionals in the field of culture, the arts, creative industries, and network providers looking for new possibilities for the digitalization of culture. The project seeks to enhance cross-border collaboration in the circum-polar region and tests new solutions to leverage digitalization in the cultural sector, with the goal of producing fresh and captivating results.

Digitalization influences the operating conditions of artists, the behavior of cultural consumers, and the boundaries of national cultural policy in a borderless digital reality. The development of low-latency connections has made it possible for people to study and offer their skills regardless of their geographical location. According to the survey carried out by the preparatory Innovative Rooms project, there is a growing need for new kind of collaboration within the cultural field as well as between arts centres and network providers. Digitalization can help lower costs for remote music and performing art cooperation and increase the accessibility of culture and cultural education such as connecting musicians and music schools, making technologies accessible for Sámi music, crafts, and language teaching over vast areas, creating interactivity in venues and developing new business models within the creative sector and providing peer support for professionals.

Cross-border cooperation is needed to achieve the project objectives and results. Due to vast distances, residents of some municipalities in Finland and Sweden are in fact closer to a cultural activity in the neighboring country. The distances between culture, education and research resources requires collaboration between nearest neighbors to address our common challenges, since no one region can financially support a full suite of resources. The project partners will join their varying music educational opportunities, theatrical stages, research knowledge and facilities and performing arts expertise into a cohesive resource for all in the circum-polar region.

We strive towards the following sustainable development goals: