Learning with the landscape<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Landscape is pedagogy<\/em>. It not only provides context and process but also becomes the author of the work, tracing its contours and textures and shaping its bodily states. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Inspired by writers from Northern Europe and the Americas, she has conceived a way of relating to the world that fosters interaction among artists, community, and places. Guided by this relationship with the world, the epistemological approach behind the creation of Gift of Stone<\/em> is thus horizontal and challenges the prioritization of certain forms of knowledge. Among her references and inspirational sources, Sk\u00e5r Lisa integrated legends and stories that were told to her by members of the local community (for instance, the story of a mermaid who dives into the sea to show us a different view of the world), as well as regional practices (such as the fish-head-and-potato soup that is fed to cows and sheep to produce more nutritious milk and to help them better withstand winter), and reflections from her artist-collaborators on indigeneity, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Translated from the French by Jo-Anne Balcaen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
In Sk\u00e5r Lisa\u2019s view, the landscape\u2019s significance \u2014 beyond the spatial and visual considerations that are often associated with it \u2014 draws on notions of territory, place, space, and relationships: \u201cFor me, the landscape is the beings that are part of it, the plants, the animals, the humans, the ancestors, the earth, the stories, the legends\u2026 The landscape is space, time, sounds, joiks, the history of the territory, and, above all, the relations between all these elements4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Interview with Sk\u00e5r Lisa recorded in Oslo in English and in Norwegian on June 18, 2019. .<\/span>\u201d
In S\u00e1mi cosmology, as in other Indigenous cosmologies, what matters is one\u2019s relationship with this particular landscape, this fjord, these fish, these rivers. These elements are viewed not as resources to extract for economic growth, but as gifts from the earth. For Sk\u00e5r Lisa, Gift of Stone is a way to express gratitude to the landscape of the Varanger fjord: \u201cReciprocity is an important part of S\u00e1mi philosophy and cosmology,[des mers] and I see this piece as a gift back to the landscape, to give thanks. Gift of Stone emerges from the landscape and is created as part of thelandscape.5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Ibid .<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gift of Stone<\/em> is created from and with the landscape. As Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg theoretician and artist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson writes, landscape is pedagogy6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance<\/em> (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, Indigenous Americas, 2017). Simpson speaks of land as pedagogy \u2014 a reflection that is extended here to the landscape, which Sk\u00e5r Lisa perceives as a territory, the creatures that inhabit it, and the relationships that occur within it, in the past, present, and future.<\/span>.<\/em> It not only provides context and process but also becomes the author of the work, tracing its contours and textures and shaping its bodily states. For Sk\u00e5r Lisa, the landscape is alive, sensitive, a carrier of knowledge (kunnskapsrik in bokm\u00e5l, one of the two written standards for the Norwegian language). The rocks, tides, animals, joiks, moon, wind, plants, sun, spirits, and snow are all-knowing; they are her teachers, as Indigenous author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes.7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants<\/em> (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2014).<\/span>. This vision of the land, learning, and creation is based on an Indigenous relational ontology that foregrounds social relations of reciprocity and trust that go well beyond the human sphere.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - Bawaka Country et al., \u201cWorking with and Learning from Country: Decentring Human Author-ity,\u201d Cultural Geographies 22, no. 2 (2015): 269 \u2014 83<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Katarina](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/98-DO8-IMG1-IM_Naoufal_Skar_fieldwork_Bergeby_river_CMYK_resultat.jpg\")
Gift of Stone<\/em>, Bergeby river, 2019.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
In this regard, Sk\u00e5r Lisa sees herself as part of a network of interconnected beings that learn, create, and become together; with her collaborators, she elaborated ways of knowing and making that are based on presence, sensitivity, and care for the land. It\u2019s a practice of bodily and multisensorial engagement \u2014 an \u201ceducation of attention,\u201d according to anthropologist Tim Ingold9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood<\/em>, Dwelling and Skill, Londres, Routledge, 2000.<\/span> \u2014 through which we learn by understanding the world directly, by opening our perception to the meanings that emanate from the landscape, not by transmitting pre-established knowledge and representations.
For musicologist St\u00e9phane Aubinet, who specializes in joik, it\u2019s a question of \u201cbecoming acquainted, in the dual sense of engaging in an encounter and creating knowledge.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - St\u00e9phane Aubinet, \u201cChanter les territoires S\u00e1mi dans un monde plus-qu\u2019humain,\u201d L\u2019information g\u00e9ographique 81, no. 1 (2017): 26 (our translation) 26.<\/span>Knowledge generation is Indigenous since it emerges \u201cenveloped by theland11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, 11 <\/a> - Simpson, As We Have Always Done, 154. <\/span> \u00bb, \u201d deep \u00adwithin a network of kinship relations between all living beings and their ancestors. These forms of knowledge are therefore situational, corporeal, multi-sensorial, relational, and intergenerational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Horizontal View of the World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
To fully engage with the landscape and create Gift of Stone<\/em>, Sk\u00e5r Lisa drew on what she calls her \u201cnavigation tools,\u201d12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 12 <\/a> - Katarina Sk\u00e5r Lisa, Gift of Stone: An Interdisciplinary Master Project in Choreography Initiated by Katarina Sk\u00e5r Lisa<\/em> (Oslo: KHIO, 2019), 7. .<\/span>\u2014 her knowledge of Butoh, contemporary dance, and somatic education, which she acquired through the study and practice of these fields. She has also studied a variety of Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/98-DO8-IMG2-IM_Naoufal_Skar_Gift_of_Stone_Bergeby_CMYK_resultat.jpg\")
Gift of Stone, Bergeby<\/em>, 2019.
Photo : courtesy of the artists <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The creative process was based on the artists\u2019 extended immersion within the landscape and site-specific creation outdoors, and it drew specifically on the worldviews, knowledge, and practices that are unique to Sk\u00e5r Lisa\u2019s Indigenous heritage. She was inspired by the horizontal perception of landscape in S\u00e1mi cosmology, in which there is no ontological hierarchy among the land\u2019s constituent elements. According to S\u00e1mi researcher Audhild Schanche, this perception contributes to creating relationships based on reciprocity, interdependence, and balance between European Arctic Indigenous communities and their territories.13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 13 <\/a> - Audhild Schanche, \u201cDiedut Horizontal and Vertical Perception of Saami Landscapes,\u201d in Michael Jones and Audhild Schanche (eds.), Landscape, Law and Customary Rights: Report from a Symposium in Guovdageaidnu-Kautokeino<\/em>, 26 \u2014 28 March 2003 (Guovdageaidnu-Kautokeino: S\u00e1mi Instituhtta, 2004), 1 \u2014 10. 1-10<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following in the Footsteps of Her Ancestor, Anna Magga<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gift of Stone<\/em> convokes the material and symbolic presence of the landscape and its inhabitants, the absent, and the disappeared.14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 14 <\/a> - Ibid.<\/span>. The work, like its creative process, is innervated by the memory of Sk\u00e5r Lisa\u2019s ancestor: \u201cI began my journey in the village of Bergeby\/Buorres\u00e1rku in order to search for my Great, Great Grandmother, Anna Magga Hansdatter Lisa, a woman I knew little about\u2026 In the only photograph I have, Anna Magga is standing firmly grounded, embodying the earth quality of movement.\u201d15<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 15 <\/a> - Sk\u00e5r Lisa, Gift of Stone, 11 -12<\/span>\u201cThis connection to the earth, this earthly quality of movement, inspired me in my way of feeling the relationship with the ground and my vertical axis, while I moved through the landscape.\u201d16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 16 <\/a> - Excerpts from a correspondence with the artist, August 6 \u2014 30, 2019. .<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/98-DO8-IMG3-IM_Naoufal_Skar_Gift_of_Stone_Vard_2019_CMYK_resultat.jpg\")
Gift of Stone, Vard<\/em>, 2019.
Photo : courtesy of the artists <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
According to Sk\u00e5r Lisa, the quest for her great-great-grandmother\u2019s story helped her better understand the history of the region\u2019s inhabitants, as well as the mechanisms and trauma of norwegianization \u2014 the violent, forced policy of assimilation of Indigenous communities by Norwegian authorities from the eighteenth century until the 1960s. Through her search for traces of Anna Magga\u2019s life and her conversations with members of the local community and the S\u00e1mi and Kven collaborators from other oppressed Indigenous communities, Skar Lisa\u2019s personal story began to resonate within a shared history. The building of the constitutive knowl\u00adedge behind Gift of Stone<\/em> is thus nourished by a collective pool of memories, affects, knowledge, and stories of life anchored in S\u00e1pmi, the name given by the S\u00e1mi people to the transnational territory in which they live.
By building their relationship with the landscape as the carrier of knowledge and co-creator of Gift of Stone<\/em>, Sk\u00e5r Lisa, Salo, and their collaborators have invented a way of creating and working together that goes against art world conventions. Through their voices, words, joiks, textiles, and corporealities, they assert and reaffirm Indigenous presence within the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n