Down in the Bog: Hibernation

Down in the Bog: Hibernation takes us on a deep dive into the curious ecosystem of peatlands.

With exhibited works by Ingrid Bjørnaali, Fabian Lanzmaier & Maria Simmons, Ensayos, Geir Tore Holm, Søssa Jørgensen, Concordia Klar, Enn Kärmas & Villu Järmut, Kristina Norman, Randi Nygård and Laura Põld, in addition to a discursive program with a range of Peatland workers from across the arts and science community, and live concerts by Elina Waage Mikalsen and Eva Väljaots. More names TBA.

Down in the Bog: Hibernation is an exhibition and a place for learning and sharing from peatlands around the world, arguing for the need for increased attention and care. Hibernation is the first of the three chapters of the overall project Down in the Bog - Thinking with Peatlands. Slowly growing, like peat forming, this project-in-process is composed by Karolin Tampere. The works on display, in addition to the discursive and live program, aim at large to give poetic, imaginative and dreamlike nutrition to more sturdy layers of awareness, knowledge and care. To learn together from the ecosystems of Peatlands.

Down in the Bog - Thinking with Peatlands is led by an ambition to create cross-pollinating meeting grounds for art, environmental issues and the public. The exhibition project emphasizes the sharing and embodying of knowledge and awareness to create attention towards the need for increased care of peatland areas, locally, nationally and internationally. Practically and conceptually the topic of peatlands will act as a guiding map and compass to learn about historical, cultural and contemporary changes in the environments around us in Sápmi, Northern Norway, Estonia and selected locations internationally.

The project will continue through its second chapter, Sporulation, presented by EKKM (Estonian Contemporary Art Museum) in Tallinn June 14th - September 1st, 2024, before returning to Tromsø with the third and deepest layer. The symposium Thinking with Peatlands will respond to the resonances activated alongside the forming of the previous chapters. Save the date for the 3 day symposium September 27-29th 2024. Stay tuned! More information will follow.

The project is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council.

PROGRAMME

With invited contributors and guests, the exhibition will act as the framework for concerts, conversations and meals. A stage for sharing themes and listening experiences that open up and connect us to familiar and unfamiliar stories from peatlands and their cultures.

25.03.24 3-5pm
Artist talks in collaboration with Tromsø Academy of Arts
Art, Ecology and Enchantment by Caitlin Franzman and Attempts to Stage a Landscape by Laura Põld
Please note location: The Black Box, Tromsø Academy of Arts, Grønnegata 1, Romsa/Tromsø

04.4.24 3-7pm
Power to the Peatlands!
A Riso-printing workshop in collaboration with MONDO BOOKS
Learn riso-printing while defending peatlands with slogan aesthetics!
A selection of flyers, logos or images from this workshop will be proposed to be used by environmental organizations that are working with peatlands.

Interested? Please contact: post@tromsokunstforening.no / subject line: Riso-workshop 4.4.24.
Limited capacity.

09.4.24
Presentation by Piret Pungas Kohv, Cultural Geographer from Estonian Fund for Nature
Historically bogs have been looked upon as ugly, useless, dangerous and therefore unwanted (except for fuel). This view on peatlands has slowly changed in the public mind. But how and why? This talk will focus on some moments in this history of change by touching upon issues of nature and national identity, tourism, and economy in Estonia today.

13.4.24
Concert by Elina Waage Mikalsen
Elina is a Sámi-Norwegian interdisciplinary artist, musician and composer from Romsa/Tromsø, Sápmi. In her sound practice, she often mixes field recordings, voice, electronics, and home-built instruments to create sonic spaces that exist somewhere between reality and fantasy. A place where untold stories and cosmologies layer over us, or perhaps push the curtain aside. It is the emotional and narrative properties of sound that interests her, and how sound can function as a time machine that causes time to collapse and sets both past and future in motion. For the past two years, she has been artist-in-residence at the Borealis Festival for experimental music, where she focuses on Sami ways of listening, sound-based practices and experimental approaches to sound.

27.4.24 2pm Central Time / 3pm Eastern Time
International publication launch: Odorant Peatlands / Turberas Olorosas by Ensayos
This is an edition representing the wetlands and peatlands of Karokynká, Tierra del Fuego; Bog Hollow, New York; Bogerudmyra, Oslo; and Minjerribah, Quandamooka Country. The edition includes four scent vials representing each location as well as a booklet with texts by Camila Marambio and agustine zegers, Hsuan L. Hsu, and Kashina.

The event will have simultaneous English/Spanish translation.
Note: Please register by filling in the form at ensayostierradelfuego.net

11.5.24
Concert by Estonian kantele player Eva Väljaots
Eva is a folk musician who plays various types of traditional kannel – an ancient string instrument widespread in Finno-Ugric cultures. Her performances employ widening playing techniques, bringing out the variegated timbre of kannels. In 2022 she was nominated as the best solo artist at the Estonian folk music awards, Etnokulp. Her debut album Hundinuiaõis * Bulrush Bloom was released the same year and consists of her self-penned music, which she performs on several kannels and hiiu kannel/jouhikko.

The guidebook for the exhibition is available for reading here.

This exhibition 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.

Curator: Karolin Tampere

Producer: Camilla Fagerli & James S. Lee

Technicians: Robert Julian B. Hvistendahl, Amalie Holthen, Mihály Stefanovicz, James S. Lee, Kaya Boudewijn, Marcus Fredriksen