Mika Hannula:

"Due to many reasons, all crystallized in the consequences of increasingly globalized economy and popular culture, there is a claim that definitions of national identities do no longer have enough argumentative power. The world at large has changed so vastly and dramatically that local differences have been effectively blurred. From the streets of Odense to the Santa Claus village in Northern Finland, people wear same clothes, listen to same music and, in the end, are all connected to same huge pool of cultural symbols and resources.

Throughout the 1990s, one of the main themes, not by choice but out of pure necessity, has been the connection and collision between so called local and global levels. Increasingly, commentators in all areas of society have noticed that there is a growing distance between the two levels. For some, this distance has already grown too large, causing a non-solvable situation, which has been, for example, labelled as the contradiction of McWorld vs. Jihad. This sceptical view claims that there is simply no way different, not cultures, but civilizations can live peacefully together.

However, who is exactly the enemy? …An alternative is present, and this time, instead of seeing it as a proof of never-ending antagonism, local and global are viewed as both necessary elements in a co-operation that might lead to something that has been dubbed as glocal. The concept is in its manufactured nature as hilarious and ridiculous as it gets, but the idea behind it is not really that brand new. What it aims at is a version of locality that is presented and available in global terms. In other words, this attitude is simultaneously global in approach and based on local experiences… The idea is, though, easily brought down to a more personal level. By changing the word local to individual and global to society, or respectively particular and general, we have actually a train of thought that goes all the way back to a man called Hegel… Thus, the starting point for the interaction and interconnection of local and global is and must be an individual experience. An experience that cannot take place here or there, but is located to a certain time and space bound situation. It is an experience that for one reason or another has proved to be significantly important for that individual. The next step is communication, the articulation of ones experience in such a way that it would become meaningful for the others who are willing and able to pay attention and listen to it. The individual experience must be translated and presented in such a way that it is reachable and readable, something to which you can after a certain adequate effort relate to."

quotes from Mika Hannula: The Impossibility of Local Identity - Notes on the Necessity of a Situated Self. in: Norden/North - Contemporary Art from Northern Europe, Kunsthalle 20