Norway
In this region
Highlights
Electric Tide
A collective listening journey to an abandoned telegraph cable house where blindfolded listening, underwater recordings, electromagnetic ghosts, and collective ritual invite participants to tune into the currents linking bodies, water, and technology
Echoes in the Fog: A Soundwalk from Moss to Jeløy
Brona Martin created MOSS – Mapping Otherworldly Soundscapes, an investigation and celebration of sound and an exploration of the relations between the natural and cultural worlds of Moss, Norway. This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Sound Walk September Awards 2025. Below, Brona discusses the piece. Often our first introduction to a new environment is experienced through
How did ferns, rocks and 1,000 km become a film?
Dario Laganà went on a 1000 km walk in Norway, and produced the short film Like a Fern Between Rocks, documenting this solitary, nomadic experience. This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Marŝarto Awards 2025. Dario earlier wrote about his experience in A loud solitude, and goes deeper into his experience, below. All of my
Walk on Fleinvaer
An installation of drawings 5 graphite pencil on curved handmade paper on the rock on the floor, 70x10cm 3 large graphite drawing, 113 x ± 300cm, 80 x150cm and 100x65cm 7 color drawings, 8x10,5cm, 6 graphite drawings, 21x14,8cm 2 drawings 32x24cm
This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top (2 tracks)
This project comprises two self-performative sound-walks designed for shopping centers in Luxembourg, specifically Belle Étoile and Auchan, exploring the over-affirmative misuse of commercial spaces. Adaptable versions of these headphone-based pieces have also been created for shopping centers in Bergen, Brussels, Maastricht, and Kortrijk.
Entangled in the Mesh
Entangled in the Mesh is a geolocative soundwalk at Campus Ås, Norway, featuring deadwood sculptures and multiple layered soundscapes accessible via the Locosonic app or loaned devices. The project explores interconnected ecological networks and non-human perspectives through sonic landscapes, durational sculptures, and multisensory experiences reflecting geological time scales and speculative futures.
Bornholm Open Form Pavilion of Air / Bornholm Åben Form Pavillon af Luft
A floating roof of sound in Bornholm, GPS-triggered & accessed by headphones & Echoes app to playfully reframe public space as an essential community engagement. One of 15 in an international series drawing on Oskar & Zofia Hansen’s Open Form concept
Lublin Open Form Pavilion of Air / Lubelski Pawilon Powietrza Formy Otwartej
A floating roof of sound at Lublin’s LSM. GPS-triggered & accessed by headphones & Echoes app. Playfully reframes public space as an essential community engagement. 1st of 15 in international series drawing on Oskar & Zofia Hansen’s Open Form concept
Bergen Open Form Pavilion of Air / Bergen Åpen Form Paviljong av Luft
A floating roof of sound in Bergen, GPS-triggered & accessed by headphones & Echoes app to playfully reframe public space as an essential community engagement. One of 15 in an international series drawing on Oskar & Zofia Hansen’s Open Form concept.
The wind walks with you around the island
Liesje van den Berk draws not only what she sees but also what she hears or feels, drawing how the senses absorb the environment. And this is what she did for her piece Walk in Fleinvaer, documenting her experience on the island with the same name in Norway.
New Year’s Day walk
This post documents a walk through the forested center of Karmøy island in Skudeneshavn, Norway, on New Year’s Day 2021, featuring text, photos, drawings, and film. The content is part of the Walking the Land project, inspired by prompt words from Scottish artist and poet Thomas A Clark.
• Articles elsewhere
16 Oct 2016 – Pryamiden and the furthest north Lenin
Sunday 16/10/2016 -2°C, 5m/s. Sunrise 10:39 - Sunset 16:45.Late Saturday night we arrive and anchor close to Pyramiden 78°39.2´N, 16°22.9´E.Emerging onto an icy deck in crisp blue morning light, the moon still hangs over a now completely calm sea. In front of us the abandoned Russian settlement of Pyramiden sits silently at the foot of the snow-capped Pyramid Mountain. Once a model coal mining town until the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, it still bears the scars of its mining days. In 1936, the Soviets acquired the rights to use the coalfields at Pyramiden and built the town to demonstrate Soviet power.Lenin's viewThe Russian government threw money at this place, even importing earth from the Ukraine so there would be grassy areas on top of the permafrost. Once there were green houses full of vegetables, hens laying eggs. A place where only the best coal miners and their families could work.It was desirable to live here - life was relaxed away from Mother Russia, people had more freedom. Any foreigner could come here without a visa, and it must of been impressive.In the 1980s more than 1,000 people lived in Pyramiden. Residents were assigned to different residential halls, which acquired their own nicknames - London for single men, Paris for the unmarried women (there was even pub on the ground floor of the women's building). Crazy House for families , so called because the children who would always play in the hallways. Gostinka (Russian for “hotel,”) was built to house short-term workers. There was a hospital, a large cafeteria - apparently so that the women didn't have to cook for their families and therefore could be useful workers (!) - a giant mosaic was made depicting the Svalbard landscape populated by heroes of Norse legends. Apparently the heated indoor pool was the best in Svalbard. All was constructed in typical Soviet block-style fashion of brick made on site with rounded edges to lessen the impact of the bitter winter wind. Somewhere there is even a grave yard for both humans and cats.Now blocks of abandoned flats where mine workers and their families once lived, are now colonised by kittiwakes. It''s difficult to imagine this waste land full of industry; I try to imagine families wandering the boardwalks on a summer evening. At top of town in front of the Culture House the northern-most bust of Lenin surveys empty streets and dilapidated buildings. We wander around the Culture house; inside is full of abandoned items - sets of old skis, a football lies in the sports court, the empty goals still in place - when was the last game? Russian books and pamphlets, old photographs of people who once lived and worked here. The world's northern-most grand piano - a "Red October" - sits on the stage in the dark and deserted auditorium. Jordi mounts the stars, sits and plays, the out-of-tune sound echoing eerily through the building. On the wall in a room upstairs is a panorama depicting the surrounding mountains. Who painted it? Rotting wooden walkways and bridges, huge mounds of scrap metal lie beside the dock juxtaposed with bright soviet monuments that reach for the sky proclaiming power. Its a pretty horrible mess but the setting surrounded by snow capped mountains, the Nordenskiöld glacier and fjord to the east, is magnificent. Waking to this everyday as you went to work - would you ever get used to it? But then the mine workers would spend their days in darkness, deep inside the mountain, to emerge into either the darkness of a polar night or blinking into the brilliant light of the summer season. Rusting swings sit in the playgroundWith the fall of the Soviet Union the money dried up, wages stopped being paid, there were shortages and standard of living fell, so families left. The town was abandonded. On March 31,1998, the last coal was extracted from the mine; seven months later, just before the ice arrived, on October 10th the last residents left. Pyramiden has now become, or they are attempting to make it, a tourist destination with a hotel staffed by a couple of Russians where visitors can enjoy staying in a Russian style room or opt for more European comforts.The Hotel - Russian style Before we leave to get back for dinner I make a quick drawing of the Pyramide mountain rubbing chalk and graphite across the page smudged with the icy water running from the mountain. Not really enough time to do much before we return to the boat. Just beyond me on the path Jordi is filming Spike dressed as a polar bear and sweeping snow. Drawing the mountain, photo courtesy of Jordi ForniesThe Pyramiden mountain, photo courtesy of Jordi ForniesLater we troop along the board walks and return in the dark to the hotel and sit in the bar drinking vodka infused with horseradish and then another with ginger (both are pretty good), watching videos of folk dancing Russians bands. I find the contrast between all this and the surrounding landscape bizarre and also depressing. Must be very weird for the few remaining caretakers who live there all year in the midst of such decay, particularly during the dark months of Polar Night. The Arctic has a complicated history of exploitation - exploitation of natural resources. Its animals have been fished and hunted to virtual extinction, it’s been mined, claimed, land stolen, people destroyed by disease, and of course now there are global warming issues – the threat of ecological destruction of the planet. When I was interviewed by the anthropologist on board we talked about the north and I found myself relating these places to the wall in the series Game of Thrones holding back the Wildling hoards of the icy north who are threatening to invade and, like Janssen’s Groke, bring winter to the rest of the world. I feel that Longyearbyen and Ny Ålesund are like walls but doing the opposite to that in the Games of Thrones - or maybe not quite the opposite - instead are trying to protect the north, to prevent the world from invading the Arctic, guarding, drawing attention to its fragility – holding us back from inflicting more human exploitation and destruction.
• Leaving Isfjorden and man over board
Saturday 15/10/2016 -3°C, 10m/s; Sunrise 10:29 – Sunset 16:55 There’s quite a swell at the entrance of Isfjorden as we take our early morning leave and continue south. We help to raise the sails and it’s certainly quieter and smoother than last night. Dark until mid-morning and much colder, ice lies over the deck. The light changes fast. We travel in grey black sea, bruised pink clouds hang over snow-covered mountains, the usual mist drifting over peaks. We pass all those glaciers again, this time in reverse order. Sometimes it just doesn’t look real. Snow sweeps in covering the deck; we slip and slide across it and more sweeping ensues; an endless task. I retreat to a sheltered corner to draw in my small sketchbook - using snow to smudge the charcoal, chalk and graphite into the paper. Afternoon. Chaos erupts; siren sounding, we stumble out into swirling snow. ‘Man overboard’ has been called; confusion. Then we’re told that Oscar’s machine to test for plastics in seawater that has been trailing behind the boat has come loose, disappearing into the sea, along with a life belt. Oscar’s machine for collecting plastics - before it disappearedThe next few hours are spent with the Captain shouting angrily at us to look out to sea and find it, to treat this as a drill for a lost person (although given the sea conditions by then they would not have survived more than a few minutes). Tensions rise, it’s very cold, visibility is poor, there’s a general feeling that this is all pretty unnecessary, our captain has over-reacted, but captains rule their ships and demand obedience it seems. Our teams - starboard and port - take 20 minute turns to line the perimeters of the boat and peer into sea and mist and swirling snow, then retreat to the saloon to warm up. Miraculously, after two hours - it might be longer since by now I’ve lost sense of time - the life belt is finally recovered, but the machine has vanished to become part of the detritus in the Arctic sea and perhaps to wash up somewhere years later as with the discovery of Andrée’s discarded ballasts thrown into the air from his balloon long after he had disappeared into the void. By now it’s too dark to draw; I think we are all pretty fed up.Increasing wind brings a greater sea swell - not good for the seasick sufferers. But it’s exciting and I sit out on deck and eat dinner while watching the boat pitching, waves rising and falling, sometimes breaching the side as the boat leans. Around me stand the suffering, hanging on, looking pale and wan, an occasional figure dashing for the side. With a slight change of direction and sails back up the pitching lessens and the sea and people calm. Later with a full moon shining over the sea there is music dancing on deck. I take to my bunk, falling asleep to the thump of revelers above my head, the moon bright through my porthole. We sail through the night.
• Arctic Post – Thurs 13th Oct Fuglefjorden – how darkness and light are bound together
--> Thursday 13.10.2016 Fuglefjorden - how darkness and light are bound together-2°C, 3m/s. Sunrise 10:11 sunset 17.15. 9-10 m/sA pre-breakfast Zodiac trip has been planned; it’s still dark when I arrive on deck. Can’t see any stars yet, a luminous green sea and dark land mass is silhouetted against the sky. The group of early-morning risers clamber into the Zodiacs, and travel out into a sea of ice, leaning out to push large chunks of looming icebergs out of the way. The sea and ice heave slowly – almost as though breathing, ice turning and moving away. We get close to the glacier, a massive wall that looms above us. Still dark and snowing slightly, falling flakes glisten in the flash from my camera. No-one speaks, it feels magical, gently traveling around the bay in a sea of ice as dawn begins to break, apricot in a clear sky. I sometimes can’t quite believe where I am. The ship comes into view in front of us in a blue world surrounded by chunks of ice.We are traveling in a vacuum, a small band of international artists on a boat high above the Arctic Circle - an improbable place with its own contested history of struggles and exploitations, of politics and power, darkness and light, myths and realities - and it’s difficult to think of what might be going on at home in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Since we left Longyearbyen most of us have had no contact with the outside, no phone, internet or radio. We occasionally talk politics (more often we talk about food and next meal or the next place we will arrive at); the Americans artists are all fed up about the looming election and the possibility of a Trump triumph, some talking about leaving the country to go to live in Canada and I can’t say I would want to stay in a ‘trumped up’ America; another artist is struggling with visas to leave one country and go to another. There are a few domestic concerns for some, but as one of the guides remarks to me, being in a cold distant place helps to get away from heightened emotions … it becomes a form of protection - ‘The sky seems closer to the land. I feel such a small dot in the landscape that I feel so insignificant that it makes problems disappear. Nothing ever happens that is important when I am away in the north’. Someone else when I ask her about her sense of north says that she feels that there is no space or time for the superficial here - it cannot survive - no time for drama. ‘North is to me the place that makes you go on a pretty straight path to the essence of it all/everything. It can be hard (conditions) and has extremes, taking you quickly to the essentials of living and surviving, and in that of life - actions, relations, words, intentions, thoughts, meanings’. There is the old ambiguity about going up there to find or lose oneself, but it is perhaps more that the far north, and particularly the High Arctic, intensifies experiences rather than providing answers or transformations. Canadian artist Glen Gould made a radio documentary programme of sounds and words and silences called the Idea of the North. For Gould the idea of north was as a metaphor for the sheer physical profundity of the northern land, ‘an escape from the limitations of civilization’ .. as something ‘other’, separate, away from society; a state of mind within which lay creative possibilities. He concludes that this vast irreducible territory is a strength, a constant reminder of the need for unity, a source of saving humanity rather than seeing it simply as a source of wealth for natural resources. Author Peter Davidson in his book The Idea of North (2004) refers to its ‘absolute difficult beauty’. Trying to grapple with all this and make work is interesting – and challenging. Sometimes the landscape seems to just draw itself – it looks like drawings rather than reality - out of this world – and I wonder what I can add to it. Davidson writes: ‘apersistent myth of the north in our own time is that the exploration of the Arctic is morally pure, connected with concepts such as rigorous self-discipline and self-knowledge, allowing artists to cling to the popular belief that northern regions are untouched, pristine. It is both reality and imagination, both rich and dangerous, a northern haven, but also a harsh dark place’. It becomes a clear bright morning. Breakfast over there is a landing on Svidjotholmen (or ‘Spikeholmen’ after Spike one of the artists traveling with us), I’m really torn between going to the island and staying on the deck to work; in some ways I should make every opportunity to go on land. In the end I stay and work on deck. I watch silhouetted figures moving around on the island, dwarfed in front of the massive shape of Svidjotbreen, and hear the noise of a large glacial calving, which I’m later told causes a big wave to hit the island. I’m sure I’m going to regret not going… but will I gain anymore from drawing on land rather than looking at the land from the sea?Midday we sail south, the wind has dictated our direction. So this is as far north as we are going to get, I feel disappointed. Cloud hovering and descending, mountains disappear reappear disappear reaching up into the sky and I’m not sure where mountains stops and sky begins anymore. A thunder grey and pale blue world, pale turquoise blue-green sea, dark ripples traveling fast across its surface. We pass chunks of ice, one looks like a swan with wings outstretched, then a large intensely turquoise piece – it doesn’t look real. Snowings again, four seagulls flying just above the sea, a dark line against white. A dusting of new snow on the mountains, dark jagged teeth above smooth snow covering. We pass glacier after glacier; I wonder what early travelers made of all this, a place of horror or wonder? In the book ‘Arctic Dreams’ author Barry Lopez remarks:'...It is as though the land slowly works its way into the man... The land becomes large, alive like an animal; it humbles him in a way he cannot pronounce. It is not that the land is simply beautiful but that it is powerful. Its power derives from the tension between its obvious beauty and its capacity to take life. Its power flows into the mind from a realization of how darkness and light are bound together within it..”. Mid afternoon, snowing so heavily that I can’t see anything; we sail on in our own white world and take turns to sweep the deck. Late afternoon the snow stops, the sky clears, the sun setting pink-orange reflected in light green pink-tinged sea, dark clouds. I stay on deck desperately trying to paint as the wind picks up - 9-10 m/s; it’s icy and my paint begins to look a bit like those slush puppy drinks kids buy. There’s still a very cold wind blowing. Most of the mountains remain shrouded in grey mist, sea turns dark blue black, a Guillimot flies by.Evening, we anchor at Fjortende Julibukta and drink mulled wine on deck in the dark.
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