Hvileåret x Hearing Home
2024
Retreat for Black women + in collaboration with researcher, Ro Averin.

As an extension of the artisic research project Hvileåret, looking at the role of rest in activism, I joined Ro Averin to co-host the third iteration of her retreat project, Hearing Home. The retreat took place on the lighthouse island of Skomvær in the Røst archipeligo about 100km out to sea from Bodø/Bådåddjo and collectively built a space of rest, escape and connection away from the weights of living in a racialised society.

During the retreat, we spent time in nature, cooking good food, reading and talking, and I held a series of workshop that draw on my wider practice.

Spoon carving :
Through out the Spoons/Ignoring project, I’ve used collective spoon carving as a way for us to practice becoming absorbed in the present- which itself can be a survival tactic when living in a racialised, hetronormative society. Ignoring offers us a small space to turn away from the world, whether this is to reflect, process or rest.

Deep listening workshops:
A listening workshop in two parts- first, after an introduction to Pauline Olivero’s feminist deep listening practices, we did some exercises to listen in nature, hearing sounds as materials and holders of stories and histories. And an evening session, we each selected two songs that were meaningful to us and listened together and shared our personal stories or memories connected to our choice.

Introductions workshop:
As people with marginalised identities, our first meetings can be leaden with weight: we are made aware of the prejudices that dictate how the world meets us and so I have been working with this idea of introduction and where we have control over this. Throughout the Hvileåret workshops at Bergen Kunsthall, we practiced a number of different ways to introduce ourselves to each other and I extended on of these exercises during the retreat for Black women +.

So often we can’t find the right words to describe how we are feeling, but then we read a book, or listen to a song- and it says exactly what we have been trying to say. For this exercise, each person was invited to share a quote that had meaning for them. We made a copies for each other in a kind of exquisite corpse, making a collection of textual portraits of our collective. The quotes came from music, books, speeches and banners.

Many thanks to Røst AIR and Elin Már Øyen Vister.