Workshop 1:
Várjjat - where the land and ocean speak ...
The workshop invites the participants to be guests in Várjjat/Varanger, Sea Sámi land - listening, sensing, being in the spring, which is the beginning of the year in Sámi tradition, at Biergi/Kiberg/ Kiiperi (Norwegian Sápmi) with interdisciplinary artist Elin Már Øyen Vister and choreographer/performer Katarina Skår Lisa, hosted by Trond Henriksen (Cape East Arctic Adventure).
Location: Biergi/Kiber/ Kiiperi
Dates: Saturday–Monday, 18–20 May (arrival 17 May)
Maximum 8 participants
Programme: Walking and listening to the land and the ocean, including visits to the Várjjat Sámi Musea/Varanger Sámi Museum, Ceavccageaðge/Mortensnes cultural heritage site, and Ihkkot/Ekkerøy or Hornøya seabird mountains.
Invited artist and composer: Elin Már Øyen Vister https://elinmar.com/
Invited performer/dancer/choreographer: Katarina Skår Lisa https://katarinalisa.com/
Host: Trond Henriksen
Coordination: Nancy Couling & Atso Airola with Elin Már Øyen Vister
We use deep listening as an ethical method/approach for site-specific work. 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 workshop will spend time listening to the land and sea scapes' innate x-stories (a new term which is more inclusive to women’s, LGBTQIA and non-hierarchical and non-patriarchal stories), to the shore, the birdlife, and human and nonhuman life that lived and have lived here. We listen to local x-story at The Várjjat Sámi Musea, Ceavccageaðge cultural heritage site, local seabird mountains, and at Cape East in Biergi/Kiberg, where Trond Henriksen is based. Henriksen is the father of dancer-choreographer-peformer Katarina Skår Lisa who takes part in the workshop as the main participant.
Day 1 (arrival previous day)
- Introduction including land acknowledgment
- Deep listening walk
- Workshop at the base
- Visit Ceavccageaðge cultural heritage site
Day 2
- Presentation by artist Katarina Skår Lisa
- Visit Kittiwake hotel in Biergi/Kiberg
- Visit Hornøya bird reserve or Ihkkot/Ekkerøy
Day 3
- Artist talk by Elin Már
- Listening
- Visit Steilneset Memorial at Vardø
- Final discussions
- Individual departures
The workshop will be facilitated by interdisciplinary artist, composer, land/water defender Elin Már Øyen Vister (NO) based on Røst in Lofuohhta/Lofoten, who has a deep passion for deep listening as developed by the late Pauline Oliveros and for dedicating their practice to documenting the historical and contemporary decline in the sea bird populations on Røst.
Elin Már has been invited by Katarina Lisa Skår Lisa to come to Várjjat.