Selvær is an island on the outer skerries of the Helgeland coastline in North Norway. For centuries the islanders in this area have built houses and tending for the eiderducks while they are nesting and hatching their eggs, receiving eiderdown in return. In this Nest we will focus on the interspecies collaboration and close-knit relationship between humans and eiderducks on Selvær.
The artists Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen propose to carry out a new artistic outdoor project, based on working methods and interdisciplinary approaches established in their previous collaborations. This new body of work will engage the local community as active participants. The project’s visual language will be a combination of the artist duo’s established nature-based focus in the form of large scale photographs, combined with elements of the man-made and objects of significance to each participant.
Eva Bakkeslett is making a film for the The Conference of the Birds about the close relationships between humans and birds. The film will explore the communication between the species, the way the relationships have developed over time and how it affects both humans and birds. In Selvær the focus will be on the collaboration between humans and eiderducks, the unbroken tradition on the island carried out by the bird caretaker Eivind Hansen.
The biologist Thomas Holm Carlsen has worked with eider ducks and the culture of collecting eider duck down since 2007. He has led several Nordic co-operation projects regarding the unique eider tradition and has lived and worked with eider ducks in Iceland for two years (2013-2015). From 2016 to date, he has monitored Eivind Hansen’s eider colony on Selvær by capturing, tagging, measuring and putting on loggers (GLS technology) for the registration of migratory routes in the winter.
This Nest will take place in Selvær in May 2022 where the artists and biologist will work together for 10 days.
The outcome will be shown at the Vega Heritage Centre and later included in the exhibitions of The Conference of the Birds .
Curator for this Nest is Eva Bakkeslett
Participants in Ahoo Ahoo
Eva Bakkeslett (NO)
Artist/Curator
Eva Bakkeslett is an artist, filmmaker and curator exploring the potential for social change through aesthetic perspectives and gentle actions.
Her socially engaged practice often combines film, participatory events and workshops.
www.evabakkeslett.com
She creates spaces and experiences that challenge our thinking and unravel new narratives, that brings our attention to the patterns that connect us to the earth as a living organism. Eva shows, lectures and performs her work worldwide and her films have been screened in numerous film festivals and art events. In 2009 her film Alchemy w as shown at MoMA, New York. She co-curated the interdisciplinary event Gentle Actions a t Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo in 2010 and recently co-curated the program Repair for ROM for Art of Architecture in Oslo. Eva has an MA in Art & Ecology from Dartington College of Art in England. She lives on Engeløya in North Norway where she now has created an Artist Residency program and studio to make a platform for aesthetic collaborations and enquiry founded in ecological and interconnected thinking and working.
Thomas Holm Carlsen (NO)
Biologist
Thomas is a researcher at NIBIO at Tjøtta (Nordland) and has a degree in biology in terrestrial ecology from NTNU, Trondheim. Thomas has mapped species, vegetation types and habitat types both in Norway and in Iceland for 21 seasons. He has worked in various projects such as management plans, impact assessments, habitat type and vegetation type mapping, vulnerability analyses and monitoring. He has good species knowledge in botany, game (especially birds), insects, as well as some knowledge in moss, fungi and lichen.
https://www.nibio.no/en/employees/thomas-holm-carlsen
In addition to habitat mapping and the management planning, Thomas has worked with eider ducks and the culture of collecting eider ducks since 2007. He has led several Nordic co-operation projects regarding the unique eider tradition and has lived and worked with eider ducks in Iceland for two years (2013-2015). From 2016 to date, he has monitored Eivind’s eider colony on Selvær by capturing, tagging, measuring and putting on loggers (GLS technology) for the registration of migratory routes in the winter.
Riitta Ikonen & Karoline Hjorth (FI/NO)
Artists
Riitta Ikonen & Karoline Hjorth have collaborated since 2011 on publications and projects including Eyes as Big as Plates (ongoing), The World in London (2012), Time is a ship that never casts anchor (2014–18), Signal, Lights, Connected for the Pyeong Chang Winter Olympics (2018), TEDMED Talk 2020, and Finnskogen Understories (ongoing). Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen received her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2008. Norwegian photographer, artist, and writer Karoline Hjorth received her MA from the University of Westminster (London) in 2009.
Eider duck (Somateria Molissima)
BIRD
The eider is a diving duck that lives in polar regions of the northern hemisphere. For centuries our species have collaborated with humans. Human archaeologists have found traces of our species in Stone Age landfills and mapped on rock carvings in northern Norway. Remains of our down have also been found as duvet filling from later times, including the Oseberg find, dated to around the year 800.
https://www.npolar.no/en/species/common-eider/
Humans help us build our nests and look after us during the nesting period. In return we generously share our soft down when our chicks have hatched. We have had this collaboration for thousands of years all along the coast of Norway, the Barents Sea and Iceland. Sadly, in the last 50 years humans have largely stopped this tradition. Because of the lack of food and undisturbed places for us to live and breed, our numbers have plummeted. We are now only 20% of the population we were 40 years ago.
