Abstract
The focus of this article is two small Norwegian rural societies and the adaption to a creative economy at the crossroads of innovation, sustainability, and survival, during centralization, generational change in a welfare state. One of the communities, Etnedal, is an inland mountainous municipality. The other, Solund, is a coastal fishing, fish-farming, and farming municipality. The two municipalities are from point of population among the smallest in Norway. The author discusses, the importance of the identity attached to the traditions of sustainability. The data is published statistical and historical information, as well as oral information and the interaction from two art projects in the communities. Both are ongoing artistic interaction and documentation. The discourse of the article is from the point of critical realism.