A Place to Rest your Thoughts

A lesson with Ande Somby: "I'm gonna fucking be a joiker"

When I decided to be a joiker. Then I also decided I shall learn all the traditions. All the different sami joik traditions. I should be able to joik in any tradition. That sort of became my project. My thing. So I know a lot of traditional joiks.

And then. I started to. To meet new joiks. New joiks came to me. And I don't know if I compose them. Its a personal mystery for me. How these joiks come about. But I experience for example a joik, a new joik, like a bird that lands, lands on my shoulder for example. I often think in that way about ideas. An idea is a little being that lands on you. And then I use to negociate with the joik. And try the joik. Joik it a little bit. Will this fit into my moods? My voice? Will it work well with my voice? Does it have the exciting energy and so on. And if that matches. I use to record it. On my cell phone. Or a recorder.

And then. When I was visiting professor in Arizona. When you are a visiting professor somewhere. You are very much alone. Cause if you come as a visiting student. Then there will be many other visiting students. And you have somebody to hang around with. But when you are a visiting professor. Then the post professor meets you the first night. But then he has familiy and obligations and his life. So you will almost never see him again. You will see him now and then. But you are basically very much alone. And I thought there. I had so many joiks that landed. And then I found out that. Now that I am so much alone. Now is the time to. To work with the joiks. So I got some professional recording equipment. And then I found a canyon right outside of Tucson. Pima canyon. And I walked there for an hour into that canyon. And then I found a big tree. And I decided. Well. This is Andes studio. And I got gaffatape with me. And I taped the microphone to the tree. And then I had one working principle. And that was. I didnt know the poems of the joiks. I didnt think about the poems. Because I had just decided I should work with those joiks. I should have the poem to meet me there in the studio. And. The poem came to me and I recorded it. Only one piece. Then I went back to theTucson. And I did that for three weeks. So I got 21 tracks. One of these tracks is the Star Girl. I can read you the poem. It goes like this:

In a dark world

We need stars

So that people who are lost

Again can find their way home

We joik the star girl

We joik her with strength

We joik her with love

We joik her with intensity

We joik her with presence

In a grey world

We need colors

So that people can see the joy

and again can find it

We joik the star girl

We joik her with strength

We joik her with love

We joik her with passion

We joik her with presence

In a silenced world

We need a voice

So that people who have forgotten to sing

Again can find their song

We joik the star girl

We joik her with passion

We joik her with strength

We joik her with presence

Vardø revisited

Beautiful text on Vardø, from 2006, by Norwegian writer Vetle Lid Larssen.

http://www.vetlelidlarssen.no/?page_id=45

All That You Can(t) Leave Behind

Today, in Vardø, there are several empty buildings. Vacant houses, old fishing factories no longer in use, abandoned sheds; spaces. An unknown amount of empty structures can be found all over town. After looking at photos from Vardø taken in April 2011, and explored the streets of Vardø, through the nauseating and sometimes confusing scope, of Google Street view, I could count roughly 65 empty buildings, maybe more.

Compared to the size of the population (2.100), the vacant structures are quite numerous. Their presence has become a constant reminder of the hardships Vardø has suffered, and the massive depopulation, cutting the inhabitant count in half. In Vardø, it’s common say, that half the houses are empty. Today, enthusiasts have begun the project of restoring some of the old houses. They are prominent - almost dominating - in the townscape. The population is still shrinking.

I see many different perspectives and aspects in approaching these empty spaces. What function did they serve in the past, what role do they have to day, and what part may they come to play in the future? Should they be preserved, teared down og transformed? Will Vardø ever again grow and attract new populations? If so, should the buildings be restored in order to accomodate these newcomers? Who do the buildings belong to - who stands to answer these questions?

What is a built structure when it is no longer in use. How do you move in an empty house. How do you move in empty street or in an empty town or inbetween many empty houses. What are these empty spaces in Vardø. To what limits can we expore the potential of empty homes, spaces, and structures?

If Beautiful, then Just as Beautiful

In this task, I have mapped trajectories of eight people and things in Vardø. It is an attempt to map and imagine the complexity of what is going in a place. Mapping everyday situations, such as walking to school or grocery shopping at Ica. How much time is being spent in everyday situations. The mapping takes place over 24 hours, a film roll for each trajectory, together with a tracking, drawn over an actual map of Vardø. A slice in time, a story with neither beginning or end.

These trajectories are only fiction. Though all places they visited in Vardø are real places. I have tried to put together stories of people that have a certain degree of reality in them. But it is also an exercise in trying to understand what is going on in a place, and to picture the life of the people living there and how they spend their time. It also made me aware of how many different ways it is possible to tell a story, as it was up to me, to decide the photos of the filmrolls. Made me aware that the story of a day in life could be told in so many different ways. This puts into question, how we map as architects, because, there is not one way of understanding a place. There are as many ways as there are people.

Even though this is fiction, there is information that can be read out of this diagram, that is relevant. It has to do with movement inbetween places. The building up of a place like Vardø, how people move frequently in the town centre, and seldom on the edges of the island, where there are no roads. What the diagram also makes us aware of, is there is no differantiation in moving in the landscape, at sea, or in the town. What happens to movement when it is no longer bound to a place.

These last three slides question the way a story is being told. And how much information, and interconnections are there to be mapped into each moment of a life. Endlessly. There are multiple ways of telling the same story, and there are threads/points/connections that can be tied up to every situation, moment, photo. There is not one way to tell a story, facing this amount of information, of what is going on at a place, realizing the complexity of place/space/time. And how everything is interconnected.

No One belongs Here more than You

In Search of What is Not There

Deconstructing Lenin and Three Conversations in Murmansk

Vardø, the new Black..

The size of the island is 3,7 km.

Since 1998, the town has housed a radar installation called Globus II.

It is the only arctic city in Norway (except from Longyearbyen, Svalbard).

The island is connected to the mainland via an undersea tunnel, built in 1983.

Vardø is the oldest city in Finnmark, founded 800, and got its city status in 1789.

Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, east of Saint Petersburg, Kiev and Istanbul.

During the 17th century, 91 men and women were burnt in Vardø, accused of witchery.

Moja på Tvoja is the name of a Russian-Norwegian language, used during the Pomor trade.

Vardø has the oldest fishing village in Finnmark, and has only remaining historical harbour in this region.

Our impression is that Vardø, the people living there, and the municipality, are concerned with participating in the development of their own future. Local entrepreneurs and the municipality are engaged in projects developing Vardø, projects that give something back to the place. Not once did we hear them compare themselves with the other towns in Finnmark. This is said, to be due to the ‘dark period’ Vardø went through in the eighties, where the population halfened. The mentality in Vardø today is to focus on themselves and what can be done in this area. Smaller projects such as restoring old buildings, participating in the Europan contest, or introducing site specific concepts that will increase tourism in Vardø, are good examples of this development. These are low key projects that give something back to the area, and stand as a contrast to private investors that exploit the natural resources as we have seen it in other parts of Finnmark. On the other hand this represents a challenge, as there is no big money invested into the place.

The way the town is put together gives an understanding of how long there have been settlements in the area. Historical buildings from different time periods, create layers and a series of ways of sensing the city. The placement of these buildings on the island or in the city centre, creates a dynamic within the town. An example of this is the Steilneset Memorial, placed on the west side of the island, seven minutes walk from the city centre, walking out there takes you into a whole new mindset, and the character of the city rapidly changes from housing areas to open landscape with the view towards the sea.

Landscapes in change: Expectations

Welcome

Dear students:


We are very happy that you have chosen this studio about the coming and vanishing arctic... and the prosperity and challenges in this - seemingly immense and dispersed region. Arguably the Arctic has the same significance for the future well being of the globe, as other more emphasized global regions such as the Amazon. The limelight is on in the high north, and we want architects and landscape architects to be aware and prepared for a future, expected exploitation that might transform the Arctic in a way that will challenge our existence beyond the limitations of the territory..


Gisle + Magdalena