Traces of A Stone

// Stranger Within (Habib/Hindi)

 

Sunday Oct 14 th 2018 , Gallery IKM, Oslo

 

“The landscape. I am a guest, a stranger, in this landscape. It is barren, cold, misty and sometimes very

sunny and bright, on the edge of turning into spring, but still lingering in cold humidity. The stone. How

to befriend the stone? It is the stone which gives me a feeling of coming home in this landscape. The stone is the centre point of my attention, and from this centre point I will open up to the environment.” (Robert Steijn)

 

In June 2017 LATERNA created a performance in collaboration with LOCUS, Robert Steijn and Kvalsund Kommune/Stallodagene. For days we sat, five artists together with the ancient stone, Áhkánjárstábba. We talked and sang for it, had meditative conversations, we moved objects and ourselves around the stone. We slept, dreamt and conversed beside it. On the day of summer solstice we celebrated the stone together with people from the local community and also some visitors from afar.

 

In LATERNAs performance Áhkánjárstábba, the stone/the place itself became our point of departure,- a portal into learning more about the history, the people in this place (Kvalsund) and their stories.

During ‘Stranger Within’ at the IKM gallery, LATERNA re-visited memories and traces of their meeting with Áhkánjárstábba, the renown stone, known as the Stallo in Kvalsund, as well as researching new ways of befriending stones. Searching for ways to involve the audience, where they may experience the stone, landscape, stories, traces and imprints that the stone left in our bodies, we invited the audience to meet with the stone and other stone bodies - inside the gallery space.

 

-What may an ancient stone tell us in our time?

Are we able to embody the stones´ bodies by looking back into roots of folklore, back to a time when we still knew how to live our lives in coherence with nature?

Is it possible to find a mysterious relationship with a landscape that does not remain a personal experience, but a collective experience, shared in a community?

May interpretations of landscapes make the local universal? What happens when we invite to a gathering around the stones inside the gallery space?

 

If even stones can fly - can we?