Forest Conversations NO 02 at Tag Team Studio, Bergen, during the three week work residency "Arbeid Pågår" in September/October.
The work at Tag Team included reports from a residency at Bioartist Society in Kilpiskjärvi Finland, and a video with documentation of 13 performances done inside the space and reports from working at Tag Team. The 5 birches were collected at Haugastøl near Hardangervidda Norway.
The final performance had a duration of 90 minutes during the open studio day on October 16th.
Forest Conversations No.01 investigates a transformation that comes from spending time in the landscape. In the domain of mountain birches the person changes form and becomes part of the birches of the north.
Performance in black, with pillar and steel.
During my residency in Ny Ålesund, in September 2021, I divided the “In Alignment” project into 3 parts.
This specific performance was built around found objects at site, as a character dressed in black. The objects I used and the performance I did was inspired by Ny Ålesund’s history as a former mining site.
In Alignment: `The phenomenon when a navigator observes two fixed reference points that are in line with the navigator. `
In Alignment (Overrett) explores the individual's relationship to nature, our acquired sense of ownership of the landscape, and how public rights of access are challenged by ever-increasing mass tourism and human environmental footprint.
The project investigates the core elements of the landscape by spending as much time in the particular landscape I work in. This includes long durational walks, field work and performances that investigates the rituals of movement and repetitive actions. It is the place I navigate myself through that makes the decisions on how I respond to details in both the place and its inhabitants.
Residency was supported by NBK and BKV
Performance in the woods in Askøy December 2021.
Photos by Petter Lønningen
As a part of the ongoing project Overrett; Forest meets Path meets Mountain meets Sea investigates navigation systems found in nature and how they can be taken into use inside a gallery space.
Each wooden object was made to represent a reference point such as signs and paths and other elements to make it accessible to move through the landscape.The shapes and colours and materials came from my own observations during the walks I have done in nature.
These objects could be transported around inside the space, so I could use them to create new paths with help from a compass and a notebook. In the notebook I wrote down where I would navigate within the space. Each route had a connection with one of the objects. For each new route I had to decide on what reference point to use. I used a pencil on the floor to make a start and end point. The rest of the route was marked with an X.
The length of the performances was approximately 4 hours.
Finse Camp is a performance event with members from the two organizations PAB and PAO. The event is held outside, in the magnificant landscape, where all participants share their own sight-specific performance.
During this event I merged between the roles of the walker, the artist and a member of the audience throughout of the day. During the second half of the day I changed into my Folkedrakt and in my hands I had 15 Eriophorum, the same amount as the participants of the event. At the end of each of the other participants performance , I would walk over to their place and plant one flower. By doing so, I signified that this space now had another history linked to it.
The performance had a duration of 2,5 hours.
All photos by Petter Lønningen
Documentation from the ongoing project titled Overrett, filmed at Haugastøl this summer.
During a one week residency I worked on the relationship between the artist and the walker and how these two characters are linked together. I lived and hiked in the mountains alone, following a variety of paths, investigating the rituals of movement and repetitive actions.
Overrett- In Alignement
In Alignment: The phenomenon when a navigator observes two fixed reference points that are in line with the navigator.
Overrett is a performance project that explores the individual's relationship to our nature, our acquired sense of ownership of the landscape, and how public rights of access are challenged by ever-increasing mass tourism and human environmental footprint.
The second visit to Vadsø in July 2019 explored the relationship between the walker/explorer and his/hers relationship to the landscape through different types of navigation systems. The walker/explorer becomes a part of the landscape by spending time in it, and then taught how to preserve it and function in it.
In the Sami tradition there is no strict distinction between culture (man-made) and nature (not man-made). They have no word for wilderness and humans and human activity are perceived as part of nature.
The landscapes are filled with traces of life stories. They tell stories about the interaction between humans and nature, not only being the core of culture but also revealing the way of perceiving one’s surroundings, coherent with the ways of movement and travel. When unfolded, landscapes are attached to and relate to a wealth of memories, which for most of us outsiders are invisible. These areas create a meaning and a linkage through which people shared their experiences and memories that were practiced through a multisensory palette of senses, sight, and smell, as they moved through the landscapes. To move, to know, and to describe are not separate operations that follow one another in a series, but parallel facets of the same process that is life itself. It is by moving we know, through movement we describe, and through movement, we shape the cultural landscapes (Strauss 2003)
Overrett at Belgin in October 2019, a two-day event combing video screening/presentation/performance and an open forum.
All photos by Petter Lønningen
Overrett- In Alignement
In Alignment: The phenomenon when a navigator observes two fixed reference points that are in line with the navigator.
Overrett is a performance project that explores the individual's relationship to our nature, our acquired sense of ownership of the landscape, and how public rights of access are challenged by ever-increasing mass tourism and human environmental footprint.
The concept of landscape, by contrast, puts the emphasis on form, in just the same way that the concept of the body emphasises the form rather than the function of a living creature. If the body is the form in which a creature is present as being-in-the-world, then the world of its being-in presents itself in the form of landscape. (The temporality of the landscape)
