Jiennagoahti

Dolla (Ild/Fire),  32.25 min (2021)

In the Northern summer, it’s not dark. It´s light at night and the birds are singing.

The damp night air covers everything with a thin layer of dew, including my audio recorder lying on a patch of moss with the microphones facing the flames of the fire.

I am lying on the old sleeping pad in my mother’s hiking jacket from the early 2000s. My fire is not big. My hands are forming a dome above the flames and I let the smoke gather in it.

Then, – I let it out.

Fire is a strange thing. When I lit it,  it already exists.  Fire is there like a potential within all things, just waiting for me to put the elements in the right order for it.

At first, there is only birch bark and the smell of bog between my fingers, before the flaming tongues of fire suddenly appear out of every inch of the flammable matter.

They move back and forth, taking over and then letting go. The flames eat up, disappear, change, and become anew.

A sneeze from the ocean, from the ashes, from mythology, spreads across the wood and covers it with its entire being.

(Dolla was originally a commission for Seyðisfjörður Community Radio on Iceland)

Jaskes šukŋa /Undersang, 47 min, 2021

When I was trying to come up with a title for this work, I came to think of the book Underland by Robert Macfarlane. The word undersong is only mentioned once. He is sitting below ground level in what used to be a holy place or a  temple.

He writes:

«…I rest companionably in the cool, listening to the landscapes undersong: clack of the train track, road-hum below it, buzz-saw of grasshoppers from the scrub»

I used to get scared of the stories my aunts and uncles would tell us around the fire, at home in the valley. The gnomes were there, right behind our backs, and could pretend to be one of us at any time. The breath was drawn down into the lungs, and pushed out through the larynx, becoming tones…melody. The oral cavity transformed the sounds into meaning, words. They came out, floating around in the air. The sound waves entered my ear, reaching the tiny hairs of the inner ear which began swaying in the liquid so I could read the information, and understand it.

Undersang/Jaske’s shukŋa was originally created as a sound installation binding together fragments of my family history, weaving them together with mythologies from the underworld. The sound work is a collaboration with my aunt, the author Gerd Mikalsen, whose own voice tells her own stories.

Elin Már Øyen Vister (b. 1976) is an interdisciplinary artist and composer, based on the island of Røst in Láfot/Lofoten, Sábme/NO.

Elin Már has studied art and experimental music and holds a bachelor’s degree from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art and a master’s degree from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. Vister has a background in DJíng, sound art, experimental music, and radio, and often works with field recordings, multi-channel sound installations, experimental music, and social site-specific projects.  They understand listening as a lifelong practice that connects their artistic practice to the world and everything alive.

www.elinmar.com

Joar Nango (b. 1979) is an artist and architect, based in Tromsø. He holds an architecture degree from NTNU in Trondheim, and is one of the founders of the architectural collective “Felleskapsprosjekt for å fortette byen” (FFB). Nango has a cross-disciplinary, collaborative artistic practice that explores indigenous architectural traditions and materials, often focusing on improvisation and adaptation to resource scarcity. He has been a festival exhibitor at Bergen Kunsthall, been shown at Documenta 14, and at the National Museum in Oslo.

Liisa-Rávná Finbog (b. 1982) is a Sámi researcher and curator based in Tampere. As a PhD fellow at the University of Oslo, she researched the relationship between museums, Sámi identities and duodji. Finbog is a practicing duojár and has curated seminars on the subject. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University, where she explores the relationships between indigenous aesthetics in the Arctic. Finbog is a co-founder of the Hásstuheaddji collective and a collaborator on the research project “The Space Between Us”. She was a co-curator for the Sámi Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Elina Waage Mikalsen (b.1992) is a visual artist, filmmaker and musician from Tromsø, based in Oslo. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Nordland Art and Film School and a master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Art, KHiO. In her works, she often uses sound in installations with textiles, text, and performance. She often works based on her own family’s coastal Sámi background and thematizes the encounter between the Norwegian and the Sámi. She has exhibited her works at LIAF 2022; the National Museum in Oslo and Nitja, Lillestrøm.

Sondre Pettersen (b. 1991) is a jazz vocalist trained from the Jazz Academy at NTNU. He has a versatile and interdisciplinary background, with experience as a composer and actor. In recent years, his Sámi roots from Moskavuotna (Ullsfjorden, Troms) have become an increasingly important part of his identity and artistic work. He has completed a master’s degree in joik and sustainability from a Sámi perspective at the University of Bergen. Currently, Sondre is working on composing music for Festspillene in Nord-Norge in 2024 with the work “Oahpahusmateriála Guoddevašvuohta.”

Máret Ravdna Buljo (b. 1977) is a Sámi chef, food- and cultural communicator and runs the reindeer farm Boazovázzi in Lødingen in Nordland with her husband. Buljo was the first Sámi recipient of the Ingrid Espelid Hovig Food Culture Prize in 2019 and is particularly focused on communicating Sámi knowledge about sustainability and ethics with regard to animal welfare and resource utilization.

Katarina Spik Skum (b. 1979) is a Sámi craftsperson and artist based in Jokkmokk, Sweden. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in duodji (Sámi fine arts) from the Sámi University College in Kautokeino. She is building her practice on Sami craft and artistic traditions, drawing inspiration from the Sápmi landscape and culture, with a main focus on reindeer skin. She has exhibited her work at the Sámi Duodji Foundation Sameslöjdstiftelsen, Jokkmokk; Ájtte; the Swedish Mountain and Sami Museum, Jokkmokk and the Sami Center for Contemporary Art, Karasjok.

Hans Ragnar Mathisen (b. 1946) is a Sami artist residing in Tromsø. He has a degree from the National College of Arts and Craft, Oslo and the National Academy of Art, Oslo. Hans Ragnar Mathisen was a member of the Sami Art Group in Máze, and his productive artistic practice is primarily defined through his long standing advocacy for Sami rights to their own cultural expression, language, land and autonomy. Mathisen has exhibited his work at Dokumenta 14, Oslo Art Association, and Tromsø Art Association.