Thinking with Peatlands Symposium

Friday 27.9 17:00 - 21:00 presentations and artistic responses at Romssa Dáiddasiida / Tromsø Kunstforening

Saturday 28.9 11:00 - 17:00 field trip to Rávdnjevággi/Finnheia (fully booked)

Saturday 28.9 19:00 - 21:00 audiovisual concert with Andreas Kühne, Polina Medvedeva and Risten Anine Gaup at Romssa Dáiddasiida / Tromsø Kunstforening

Sunday 29.9 11:00 - 12:00 exhibition visit at the Arctic University Museum of Norway

Sunday 29.9 13:00 - 16:00 field trip, starting by Rundvannet (fully booked)

Free admission and no need to sign-up for the evening events Friday and Saturday. See full program below

Monday 20.9 17:00 - 20:00 our friends in Sabima and Forum for natur og friluftsliv i Troms organizes a seminar on nature restoration at festsalen in Rødbanken, Storgata 65. More information here

Thinking with Peatlands is a symposium where the peatland and its ecosystems is the protagonist. Carefully, we borrow the mire as a prism for learning and exchange between artists, natural scientists, environmental protectors and others interested. With the help of sensorial formats like sound, walking outdoors and performative action, new connections between the wet body of peatlands and our own bodies of water are made. Locally anchored in Romsa/Tromsø and the mires of Rávdnjevággi/Finnheia and Isrenna, art, natural science, cultural history and activism cross-pollinate in order to bring attention to these threatened and important ecosystems.

With: Andreas Kühne, Polina Medvedeva and Risten Anine Gaup (artists), Ane Elene Johansen (artist and local resident), Anne Sofie Morsund (senior advisor on mires at Sabima), Caitlin Franzmann (artist, part of ENSAYOS), Carla Macchiavello (art historian and educator, part of ENSAYOS), Eimear Tynan (Associate Professor of landscape architecture, UiT), Ingrid Bjørnaali and Maria Simmons (artists), Gisle Løkken (architect, 70°N Arkitektur), Jamie Walker (RE-PEAT), Isak Brox Krane and Andrine Hallen (Natur & Ungdom Tromsø), Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide and Fia Bengtsson (NINA - Norwegian Institute for Nature Research), Magnus Skei Holmen (artist), Søssa Jørgensen (artist)

Peatlands blur binaries. They are liquid and solid, a cooperative ecosystem consisting of minerals, nutrients, plants, bacteria and so much more. A living memory-medium where visible and invisible stories are stored over thousands of years. A hybrid archive considered to be a portal between the worlds of the living and the non-living. These archives can tell us about known and unknown cultural histories throughout different eras, as well as changes relating to climate.

The project is generously supported by Arts Council Norway and Kunstsentrene i Norge.

Thinking with Peatlands is the third part of the overall project Down in the Bog - Thinking with Peatlands. This project consists of three chapters where the process based exhibitions Hibernation and Sporulation were following the seasons from a snow covered Romsa/Tromsø to summer in Tallinn, Estonia, and back to autumn in the north. The project as a whole is curated by Karolin Tampere, the symposium in collaboration with Camilla Fagerli.

This project is part of Karolin Tampere's ongoing research as a PhD fellow in artistic research at Tromsø Art Academy - UiT The Arctic University of Norway and The Faculty of Fine Art, University of Bergen. Tampere is also part of the research group Worlding Northern Art (WONA) at the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway.

PROGRAM
The whole program is in English language and free to attend.

Friday September 27th, 5pm - 9pm

Where: Romssa Dáiddasiida / Tromsø Kunstforening, Mellomvegen 82

Who: Natur & Ungdom Tromsø, Gisle Løkken (architect, 70°N Arkitektur), Anne Sofie Morsund (senior advisor on mires at Sabima), Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide and Fia Bengtsson (NINA - Norwegian Institute for Nature Research), Carla Macchiavello (art historian and educator, part of ENSAYOS), Jamie Walker (RE-PEAT), Magnus Skei Holmen (artist), Søssa Jørgensen (artist, part of ENSAYOS), Caitlin Franzmann (artist, part of ENSAYOS), Ingrid Bjørnaali and Maria Simmons (artists).

What: This Friday evening program aims to share multiple insights from peatlands and peatland workers locally, nationally and internationally. We will get an introduction to the local mire situation in Romsa/Tromsø and learn from young activists' engagement in nearby Rávdnjevággi/Finnheia. Through short presentations, the light is put on interdisciplinary peatland related work from different organizations and initiatives working with natural science, politics, restoring and protecting mires. A red thread weaves through the whole evening with artistic responses to peatlands and its ecosystems. We will end the evening by sharing a warm meal.

Saturday 28th September, 11am - 5pm

Where: Rávdnjevággi / Finnheia

Who: Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide (senior research scientist, NINA), Fia Bengtsson (research scientist, NINA) Jamie Walker (RE-PEAT) & Natur & Ungdom Tromsø, Ane Elene Johansen (artist and local resident), Andreas Kühne (artist)

What: We will visit the contested peatland areas of Rávdnjevággi / Finnheia where plans of an Arctic Center ski resort are threatening biodiversity, cultural heritage, reindeer herding and local residents. Here we will be spending time outdoors, walking, guided by different voices and practices. We will learn about and from the Sami cultural history of Rávdnjemuotki, a place which was the summer home of Sami people and reindeer herders, who were forcibly displaced to various places in Sweden in the 1920s. Many of whom never got to see their home again. We will get insight into the Finnheia struggle from a local resident perspective of the daughter of a landowner and farmer in the area, who has grown up fighting against the continuing threat of the realisation of Arctic Center - a ski resort and cabin village planned to be built over large areas, including peatlands. We will engage closely with the life of the bog by listening, looking and learning from the different important sphagnum mosses that are visibly growing on the surface and take a deep dive down into the mysteries of the turf below. Finishing this day we share a warm meal in the barn goahti at Holemark farm.

Saturday 28th September, 7pm - 9pm

Audiovisual concert by Andreas Kühne, Polina Medvedeva and Risten Anine Gaup

Where: Romssa Dáiddasiida / Tromsø Kunstforening, Mellomvegen 82

What: Anarchiving Rávdnji – a live audiovisual performance following forward traces from Rávdnjevággi / Finnheia on Sállir / Kvaløya. Artists and collaborators of the Rávdnji exhibition at The Arctic University Museum Andreas Kühne and Polina Medvedeva improvise with the audiovisual material they gathered for the exhibition and invite Risten Anine Kvernmo Gaup to add new traces in response.

The performance evokes holistic listening perspectives and reciprocal transformations through interaction. What do we experience when we move in between the Sámi siida and peatlands of Rávdnjevággi today? As we are listening with our whole body, a landscape is transforming in front of us, entangling the past, present and future and oscillating between histories and futures, memories and the subconscious.

Sunday, 29th September 11am - 12pm

Option to independently visit the exhibition Rávdnji - Den strie straumen at Tromsø Museum - The Arctic University of Norway.

Sunday, 29th September 1pm - 4pm

Where: Meetup at the gapahuk by Rundvannet (reached by public transport, buss nr 42)

Who: Eimear Tynan (Associate Professor of landscape architecture, UiT) Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide and Fia Bengtsson (NINA - Norwegian Institute for Nature Research)

What: This Sunday we start around the fire in the gapahuk (shelter) next to the Rundvannet lake to learn about the history of Isrenna. North of Tromsøya, three lakes known collectively as Holmbovannene—Rundvannet, Langvannet, and Lillevannet—played a pivotal role in the local ice industry starting in the 1920s. For decades, ice harvested from these lakes was used for preserving fish on trawlers passing through Tromsø. Although written and photographic documentation vividly recounts this active industry, the physical structures that supported the ice harvesting operations are now largely obscured by the surrounding lakes, bogs, and woodlands.

We will hear about planned development on nearby mires and, while walking around in the area, learn about Eimear and her former landscape architecture students from UiT's research into the area’s history. Closing the Thinking with Peatlands symposium, participants are invited to engage in discussions about the current significance of this area and to explore which values and qualities from the ice industry might be carried forward into the future.