CALL FOR PARTICIPATION KNOWLEDGE AT SEA DEADLINE 15 December 2025

October 30, 2025

May 9-25, Turku, Finland – Ísafjörður, Iceland

KNOWLEDGE AT SEA – TRANSDISCIPLINARY COMMUNITY PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Study trip for artists, students, researchers and cultural workers

What happens when artists, researchers, and cultural workers set sail together to explore sustainability—not just as a concept, but as a lived, shared practice?

Dive into transdisciplinary action—share knowledge, build skills, and co create sustainable futures aboard across the North Atlantic and ashore at the Icelandic Westfjords.

Research shows that tackling complex challenges like biodiversity loss and sustainable ocean living requires collaboration and partnerships across diverse knowledge traditions. Transdisciplinary approaches—bringing together artists, societal actors, and researchers—are often highlighted as especially powerful in generating new questions and deeper understandings of these planetary issues.

Studies also emphasise that both trans- and interdisciplinary work demand facilitation, the development of transversal skills, and the ability to engage with localised, situated knowledge found in varied practices and perspectives.

This is the foundation of the study trip Knowledge at Sea – Transdisciplinary Community Practices for Sustainability, which gathers students, artists, researchers, and cultural workers for a facilitated learning experience where we learn from and with each other.


If you’re interested in learning beyond the siloed structures of academia, sharing your knowledge practices in a dialogical and cross-pollinating environment, and building long-term collaborations for sustainability work—you’re warmly invited to submit a proposal.

Facilitators

Your facilitators for this study trip are postdoctoral researchers Laura Hellsten (Theological Doctorate) and Eduardo Abrantes (PhD in Philosophy), working alongside a community of learners.

The facilitation draws on selected passages from Olaus Magnus’ Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555), explored through experimental reading practices and artistic research methods. These texts—describing the seas, landscapes, flora, fauna, myths, and cultural customs of the Nordic-Baltic region—offer a worldview markedly different from our own.

This contrast provides a rich foundation for dialogue on scientific worldviews and fosters collaborative partnerships beyond disciplinary boundaries, opening space for multiple ways of knowing.

Travel itinerary

  • May 8: Departure from your institution
    (Åbo Akademi students depart from Turku Harbour at night)
  • May 9: Arrival in Frederikshavn, Denmark
  • May 10: Ferry departure from Hirtshals, Denmark (The sea journey is a core component of the course methodology)
  • May 13: Arrival in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland
  • May 13–21: Workshops and field encounters in Ísafjörður and the Westfjords
  • May 21: Ferry departure from Seyðisfjörður
  • May 24: Arrival in Hirtshals, Denmark (Return travel to home destinations follows)

Participation in the full study trip is required for students and collaborators planning community projects together on the return trip.

Researchers or others may return home on their own expense as early as May 21st. If this is your preference, please indicate in your application that your option is participation with individual return.

How to participate

Students

You are a master’s or doctoral student at Åbo Akademi University or one of its CHARM-EU partner institutions. To participate, you must enroll in the course TE00CS16-3005 Social Imaginaries and Transdisciplinary Learning https://studiehandboken.abo.fi/sv/kurs/TE00CS16/31252?period=2024-2027 and send us a letter of interest where you specify why you want to take part in this course. Places are limited, so we will base the selection on your motivational letter!

Artists

If you’d like to contribute to the study trip, you’re invited to propose a workshop or facilitation that introduces the community to your artistic research practices. To apply, please submit a short bio and a description of the workshop you wish to offer.

Knowledge partner

Are you a researcher, cultural worker, or entrepreneur engaged with sustainability or blue humanities? If you’re interested in forming partnerships and participating in communal learning environments that deepen your work, expand your knowledge, and enhance your contributions to knowledge of the seas you’re warmly invited to join us.

Send your motivational letters and suggestions for workshops to laura.hellsten@abo.fi by December 15th 2025!

For more details: https://laurahellsten.polininstitutet.fi/events/knowledge-at-sea/