The history of the circle recounts – Elin Már Øyen Vister (NO)
The performance acts out the chant and mantra of the polyphonic vocal arrangement created by Elin Már Øyen Vister as an 8-channel sound installation currently exhibited at Bildmuseet, made for the exhibition Eco-Visionaries. The aim is to invoke the goddesses Sarakka, Juksakka and Uksakka from Sami mythology as well as the tree Norns Urd, Skuld and Verdandi from Norse mythology. The piece is inspired by a reconciliation process between the Sami and the Norwegian state.
The performance works with the situatedness of the Ume/Ubmeje river, both past present and future. Connecting it to the Ume Sámi history, horizontal movements from Ubmeje across the constructed national borders over to the Norwegian side where they are currently reconnecting with the Ume Sámi roots and beginning a language revival.
Elin Már Øyen Vister (b. 1976) is a Norwegian artist and composer based in Røst, Nordland/Sápmi. With a broad audio and music background – as DJ and producer, with field recordings and radio – Øyen Vister works within several artistic disciplines. They are occupied with listening as artistic practice, as a way to compose and to sense and experience the world, and prefer to work site-specific. By listening to the ocean, the sky, birds, mountains, buildings and people´s oral and written stories, Øyen Vister seek to include both the human and the non-human, the spoken and the un-told, in the nature-cultures we live in. Their work break with Western hegemonic narratives that have placed the human being in the centre, and instead focuses on landscape’s innate stories and knowledge.