Workshop 2:
Árviesjávrrie - in ancestral forests and mountains
The workshop invites the participants to be guests in Árviesjávrrie/Arvidsjaur, Swedish Sápmi and Forest Sámi land - listening, sensing, being in the summer with artist, reindeer herder and yoiker Jörgen Stenberg among others. Artistic researcher and curator Susanne Ewerlof contributes to the workshop through her current work on erased collective memories, the forgotten knowledge of this place and her ancestral ties. Her PhD in artistic research at HDK Valand /Gothenburg University is partially carried out in collaboration with architect Trine Hansen and combines curatorial, artistic and academic methods and aims towards collaborations and building relations in the Árviesjávrrie/Suorssá/Máláge (Arvidsjaur/Sorsele/Malå) area.
Dates: Tuesday–Thursday, 5-7 August 2025 (arrival 4 August)
Invited artist, reindeer herder and yoiker: Jörgen Stenberg
Host: Sámi Association
Coordination: Susanne Ewerlöf, Nancy Couling and Alberto Altes
We aim to use ethical methods/approaches for site-specific work and look for ways to explore and acknowledge forest, landscape and their soul. In continuation of the first workshop, we spend time with questions of how artists or cultural workers can develop ethical and respectful, reciprocal, and relational ways of working with land they visit as guests, and do not have a cultural connection, or heritage to, in particular on /in indigenous land. The Ume Sámi language of the area is considered one of the most vulnerable languages in Europe today and its erasure can be traced to the heavy assimilation that targeted the Forest Sámi.
The workshop will spend time listening to the forest and mountain, reflecting on erased cultural heritage and ways to express, perform or acknowledge this. We directly experience Akkanålke mountain with Jörgen Stenberg, and listen to local stories of the history organization and the Sámi association. Jörgen Stenberg is a cultural worker and reindeer herder with knowledge of Forest Sami tradition, as well as strong ideas about how people may consider both spiritual and other ethical aspects when making use of land in various ways.
The workshop takes place in loose dialogue with other local people.
PROGRAM
Day 0 (arrival day)
17.00- chaga tea -local traditional mushroom on birch tree form sami ancestor’s land.
Evening dinner and participant introductions
Day 1
- Land in the place by walking in the Akkanålke mountain with Jörgen Stenberg
- Introduction including land acknowledgment yoik, & forest sami history
- Participant sessions:
Monika Dorniak: 40-minute experiment sharing a score - breathing as an archive from history
Ayesha Gordon: Singing for Seeds
Beatrice Lopez: Recording in a wooden sculpture- a personal letter to the sea.
Yohei Hamada: Passing around a living sculpture
- Common dinner in the Sami Association's house
Day 2
- Guided tour at the old Churchtown by Elisabeth Allnor: craft, architecture in Forest sámi buildings
- Trine Hansen: (goahti, old Churchtown) Ságastallaárran, A Sea-Sámi Ritual-Based Architecture
- Visit Grodkällan (the frog spring) a clear green lake in the woods
- Picnic lunch and/or fire at shelter/laavu
- Participant sessions:
Klara Björk: Situated Learning–an exploratory sensory exercise
Alyssa Coffin: Sensory embodiment, meditation and getting to know your more-than-human neighbour
Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez: Forest world-body/territory, with text by Davi Kopenawa/Bruce Albert’s, “The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman”
- Evening meal
Day 3 Thursday 7th August
- Yohei Hamada- movement exercise
- Visit at the homestead organisation with Lena Lindgren
- Lunch with waffles homestead café
- Guided Walk and Talk about local birds, insects etc (Krystyna Enander)
- Final reflection, discussions
< images by Yohei Hamada