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.
Food and accommodation over the three days is provided by the workshop, as well as travel expenses up to ca. €350.
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.
Katarina Skår Lisa
https://katarinalisa.com/
is an educated choreographer, dancer, and teacher who through artworks conveys the relationship between poetry, art, and nature. She lives in Nesodden, a half-island outside Oslo, but frequently she finds her “home” in the very north of Norway/Sápmi, in Varjjat / Varanger in the Sami area of Finnmark. Here she makes relational inquiries with the land and to her Sea Sami family heritage that she carries through her father’s roots.
In her recent project ‘Gift of Stone’, she explored what ‘ good relations ‘ means to and with landscapes and intangible cultural heritages, seen from an indigenous worldview. She aims to broaden perspectives and knowledge about Sea Sami culture by investigating what a Sea Sami artistic language could be today.
Elin Már (NO)
https://elinmar.com/
Elin Már Øyen Vister is a genderqueer interdisciplinary artist, composer, and land/water defender, based on Røst in the far south-west of Lofoten/Lofuohta/Láfot, traditional Sea Sami lands. Elin Már embraces a wide range of artistic expression and works with experimental composition, field recordings, improvisation, performance, installation, language/place names/linguistics, poetry/text, textiles, sculptures of organic material and so-called sensory walks. Øyen Vister practices an artistic research method that is slow-moving and site-specific, and which is inspired by Deep Listening, intersectional, post-colonial, and eco-feminist elements, social justice movements and indigenous methods. Creating space for a diversity of understandings of reality, narratives and voices is Elin Már's driving force, together with deconstructing "given" and "normative" truths. Ideally, Øyen Vister's installations are accompanied by one/several social choreographies that take the audience physically “out of the gallery space and” into the landscape, the work they have co-created belongs to - and relates to. Øyen Vister's ongoing major artistic research projects include "Soundscape Røst (2010-)" and “Deconstructing Norwegianness". They also co-operate and program the artist in residency program and joint workshop Røst AIR at Skomvær Fyrstasion and Røstlandet (2012-).
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
Location: Árviesjávrrie/Arvidsjaur , Swedish Sápmi
Dates: Tuesday–Thursday, 5-7 August 2025 (arrival 4 August)
Maximum 8 participants
Programme: Walking and listening to the forest and mountain, including Forest Sámi architecture at the old Churchtown, guided visits by the local history organisation, and a day dedicated to contextual performative methods.
Invited artist, reindeer herder and yoiker: Jörgen Stenberg
Host: Sámi Association
Coordination: Susanne Ewerlof, 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.
Food and accommodation over the three days is provided by the workshop, as well as travel expenses up to ca. NOK 3500
PROGRAM
Day 0 (arrival day) Monday 4th August
17.00- chaga tea -local traditional mushroom on birch tree form sami ancestor’s land.
Evening dinner and participant introductions
Day 1 Tuesday 5th August
- Land in the place by walking in the Akkanålke mountain with Jörgen Stenberg.
Introduction including land acknowledgment yoik, & forest sami history
- Visit at the homestead organization.Lake walk, observing plants and/or birds with local experts
- Common dinner Sami Association's house.
Day 2 Wednesdy 6th August
- Contextual performative methods, led by Alberto Alteswith invited Sámi Artist (tbc).
- Sharing session
Day 3 Thursday 7th August
- Visit Grodkällan, (the frog spring)
- Guided tour at the old Churchtown (Elisabeth Allnor) - craft, architecture in Forest Sámi buildings
- Discussions with historian Bertil Marklund - research on pre-colonial Forest Sámi and the land and local council Sámi representative
- Reflection, performance, input by musician and architect Trine Hansen
- Final discussions
Day 4 Friday 8th August
- Individual departures
Participants will be chosen based on experience and motivation, but also on diversity to include those both within and outside academic contexts. Several places are reserved for local participants. Doctoral candidates, post-docs, artists, practitioners in different fields are encouraged to apply. We look forward to your application and to joining us in Árviesjávrrie in August!