Welcome to my research blog, where I will endeavour to place research, books, images, text of art projects past and present on which I am working.
2017 ART RESIDENCE NORWAY
In 2017 I applied for a 3 week artistic residency in Arctic Norway through the Lawaka Current.
I wanted to investigate the relationship between the natural landscape in the Arctic, ritual and indigenous Saami peoples of the land . I took a large rolled piece of canvas, embroidery needles and coloured cotton, small notebooks, laptop , and graphic texta’s as my materials for the trip.
The residency was located on the island of Soroyo off the Norwegian coast to the north, within the Arctic circle.
At first I spent my days in a barn drawing and walking around the snowy landscape.
The barn became to cold to practice in as a work space at -15 and so I shifted into the attic of the house in which the residency was being held. I created a stone altar in the snow on the bottom of a mountain close to the residency house (as the Saami would have done in older times) and walked daily in the snow (weather permitting) to sit and be present to the elements of the island.
I would research and read books on Sea Saami and Saami and I would draw small sketches.
I began an embroidery which is still unfinished at present, around YGG DRASIL the world tree and the mythology of the Saami and Viking’s.
The Island apart from being a naturally elemental and mysterious place because of its weather , position and raw landscape also has mysterious and sordid histories.
Not much is well documented or known about the Sea Saami as a culture unto themselves because the Norwegian history of denying and stigmatizing the cultures of these peoples.
The island is one of a number of islands located in the Arctic that has a focus on fishing.
The Saami people are known for Reindeer herding also and within my research I was able to understand some definite distinctions in the cultural difference between Sea Saami and land Saami. The other historical stories that became present while researching the place and Saami was the occupation of Northern Norway by German forces in the second world war and how peoples on the island had responded and suffered and the witch trials in the north of Norway which persecuted many a Saami traditional healers.
