“Time Work” Symposium In Hindsight

With two months hindsight; what did we bring from Studies in Remoteness’ Summer Session with the Nordic Summer University in Latvia?

On July 23, I arrived in Saulkrasti and reached hotel Minhauzen Unda; a Soviet-time building complex, close to the Baltic sea shore and surrounded by a deep, airy wall of high pine trees…

Arriving in Minhauzen Unda, Saulkrasti, Latvia

–

…and with the high-flying fabulist Baron Munchausen installed to be the patron of the establishment.

Time table for Time Work. Debt, inheritance, and intergenerational practice
(NSU Circle 1, Studies in Remoteness’ Summer Session 2026)

On July 24, all study circles were gathered, and participants greeted with a welcoming dinner. About half of our circle are returning friends from the Winter Session in Berlin, and the other half are newcomers; a good mix, and again a wonderful bunch of people. With the new morning, our programme begins with a brief introduction, followed by a workshop with Agnese Cēbere: Forming Words in Latvian… an appropriate start to ground us in this place where we are all newcomers. Afterwards, we split up in smaller groups to listen to each others’ thoughts on the concept of “remoteness”.

Saturday morning, July 25: “What is ‘remoteness’ to you?”

A large piece of canvas – serving as a tablecloth during the Winter Session in Berlin – is now turned into an improvised projector screen for Tinka Harvard’s lecture on The Melt Archive: Water, Memory, and the Work of Attention.

Preparations, arrangements, notations; writer, poet and theologian Tinka Harvard in lecture.

Leaving her notes behind to speak from the heart, Tinka’s words opened up another poetic dimension where oceans and melting ice speak memories of destructive powers as well as awareness, care and love…

Raging wildfires in California kept our next speaker Adrian Centeno hostage; we missed him dearly, but were treated with architect Monica Tușinean’s reflections on tensions between an architects’ prestige and the craftsmanship of builders.

From the next days, only a few highlights remain… because the flow and intensity of exchanges left little space for documenting.

Sunday is a day of outdoor workshops: walking, pausing, observing, drawing and reflecting. Prof. Paul Landon brought us to the scattered ruins of a Soviet era summer camp; left to decompose in the greenery, drawing hard-handed courtship from graffiti tourists…

Prof. Paul Landon introducing the group to the uncanny familiarity of modernity’s ruins

…and on Monday, the canvas screen is improved by Nikola with a string and clothes pegs from the always helpful reception ladies; now ready for Dr. Shiluinla Jamir’s presentation Rethinking Contemporary Animism from the space of Remoteness, with respondent Prof. Bendanglemla Longkumer joining us online from Fiji.

Tuesday, July 28: Excursion Day. A long, lonely walk along the stretch of sandy beach, where the Baltic sea may gift a piece of amber or a “witch stone” to some lucky wanderer. I was happy to just breathe with the winds and waves – approaching, withdrawing…

–

…soothing, powerful and precarious. Pebbles and gentle sunshine; undercurrents, quicksand.

How do we move along with the flow of life, without hurting or getting hurt? How do we act responsible, and where does one’s responsibilities stop? How do we act freely?

Going, returning. Bare feet touching ground. Landscape turned real estate; layers of history.

Contemporary architecture and Soviet summer camp estate for sale; two sides of the same road

For Tuesday evening, the canvas screen found a new application, displaying (reverse) filming in Guy Dolev’s performance lecture Cow Park; a hommage to the struggle of the Jerusalemite Armenians to protect their historical ground – once a field for grazing cattle, today a parking lot carrying great significance in the community’s social life.

Artist, researcher and teacher Guy Dolev setting up the Cow Park scenography

Wednesday, then, is largely dedicated to lectures on historical events in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; three countries with very different, although sometimes converging, fates. This lecture series form the sub-project Shared Stages, Entangled Pasts, funded by the Baltic-German Liaison Office and connecting us to distinguished scholars in the region. We’re also invited to track the bear regalia of the Mamalilikulla people all the way from 19th century Canada to a museum depot in Berlin; to follow the anarchic movement of vagabonds in 1920’s Germany; and to visit the late 20th century’s “countercultural” hippie/settler/prepper utopias in US West coast states – in three lectures by (respectively) Lindsey Drury, Timo Kaemmerer and Johanna Gilje.

Thursday is already wrap-up day – but first, a few more beautiful contributions… among them, setareh fatehi’s Parallaxing-(i): a walk on a shaky bandwidth took us on a walk in the park – in Saulkrasti, and simultaneously, via a groupchat, in Tehran – recreating human dignity in remote presence; followed by Nikola Markovic’s film Spectral Garments and Reworking of Time in the Balkan Family Archive, starring Nikola’s grandmother… an excerpt from a larger work that I hope to come back to in the future.

The canvas made its final appearance as an archival surface during the closing discussion; a playground for the winds, waves and undercurrents of a weeklong shared experience.

Gala dessert and clean-up time; leaving Latvia by bus and ferry

After the last evening’s gala dinner, and the last morning’s cleaning and resetting of our assigned space, only the goodbyes remain before homeward journeys begin. Back home, I handwash the canvas and enjoy a sweet soft almond candy from Tehran with home-made rhubarb lemonade – immersed in the richness of the experience.

A time to rest and reflect. A canvas carrying memories. A stone, gifted from one of the magic-working reception ladies.

For the months ahead: process, discuss, think forward, make decisions… More (very) soon!

Duplicity / Duplicität Symposium (day four of three)

art, recent work, time-out

…yes, day 4 out of three – because the programme got so rich, that it just didn’t fit within the settled time frame.

On this wintery Sunday morning, some participants decided to rest and digest, while others were homeward bound – to Trondheim, Porto or Los Angeles… The rest of us made a choice between the Weathering exhibition at Haus am Waldsee, or a sound walk / dérive in the former East Berlin district of Lichtenberg.

Screenshot

Landsberger Allée – Arendsweg – Pyramidenring – Alte Rhinstrasse
(Google Maps screenshot)

I head for the sound walk, taking the M6 tram to the stop at Schalkauer strasse where Katt is waiting. Soon enough, Eli and Paul join us. Incessant through traffic rumbles along the Landsberger Allée, and a biting wind rattles the flaglines in front of IKEA as we cross the huge parking lot. South of the walkway, the windowless metal façade of a giant wholesale warehouse closes the view. Above Rhinstrasse, a towering high-rise: Die Pyramide – a prestigious 145 million € project completed a few years after the German Wiedervereinigung, soon a cause of financial disputes, later sold to a real estate developer… now a post-modern monument well past its prime.

From Pyramidenring, we turn left to proceed along the back side of this glass-and-granite complex, where it turns into a long stretch of lower building blocks alternating with narrow yards where trees stripped of leaves comb the wind. From Eli, we learn that Alte Rhinstrasse marks the border to a no man’s land, of sorts; or rather, a “some men’s land”, since violent right-wing groups claim the space beyond this old road – now a backstreet – making it a no-go place for those in focus of their aggressivity. A little further up the street, a rusty boom barrier and a sentry box with flaking paint still monitor a former industrial area, disused since decades.

“90’s Curtain Wall Grotto, Berlin”; photo by Katt Hernandez

A man exiting from a gym in the Pyramide’s side block allows us to slip inside to hide from the cold a few minutes. As we gaze at empty windows, empty stairwells, empty name plates on metallic information boards, Katt evokes images of families walking by on their way to the shopping malls on a sunny autumn’s day… A phone signal rings; it’s Lu, looking for us and asking us to send her a live position on Whatsapp. We hurry out to meet her in the street, and suddenly find ourselves back at the Landsberger Allée just outside the main entrance of the Pyramide. To our surprise, the doors are unlocked and we can walk inside.

Screenshot

“Die Pyramide” main entrance (Google Maps screenshot)

Vast, blank surfaces. No sounds of human presence, except for our own footsteps; we fall silent, too; unsure about how to behave. Cautiously, we sneak towards the high row of black pillars… behind which a security guard is relaxing by the reception desk. He offers us various folders and prospects from the enterprises housed in this office hotel. We thank him politely and return to the street, where the M6 line takes us back to the city center. We finally join with the remaining group for a warm Georgian lunch at Kin Za restaurant, before breaking up.

However, this sound walk / dérive stays with me. In little more than an hour, a stroll of perhaps 2 kilometers in seemingly dull surroundings caught an incredibly complex image of recent German history, architecture-as-ideology, financial manipulations, flows of communication and commodities, varying conditions for people’s everyday lives, and the continuous cycle of quiet growth and decay within the city’s ecosystem of flora and fauna. I hope to hear Katt’s violin tell more about this brinkscape practice… and I’ll bring the experience into the continued work of Studies in Remoteness.

Duplicity / Duplicität Symposium (day three of three)

art, recent work, time-out

… and how could the spirit of the second day be carried forward now – bursting with intellectual and emotional energy as it was?

The answer turned out to come almost by itself, with a change of pace: from yesterday’s parallel strings of concise case studies swiftly followed by verbal exchanges of Q’s and A’s, to extended presentations creating space for a deeper listening; for resonance, outwardly and inwardly…

The first feature of Saturday’s programme, sound artist Hector MacInnes‘ Collective Listening from Echo to Interference, carried us from Berlin to the the Isle of Skye, inviting us to roam and rest within a delicately composed soundscape of voices: repeated calls for contact, interlaced with distinct impressions and reflections on records, intimacy, and distance – evoking feelings of loss and sadness, imbued with a sense of care. A tentative call for solidarity?

Above: Hector MacInnes in dialogue with the group, after the Collective Listening experience
Below: Katt Hernandez waiting to present Brinkscapes as Practice (left);
“Kungens Kurva strange utility hut”, photo credit Katt Hernandez (right)

Next, musician and composer Katt Hernandez performed a dérive in urban peripheries, cutting through notions about desolate wastelands by addressing the warehouses, shopping malls, and vast parking lots as comforting sites of everyday human presence and protective anonymity, fondly naming them brinkscapes. The rhythmical sequence of pictures, speech, and silences unfolded as if tuned to inaudible music – eventually set free to sound by the fiery and tender voice of Katt’s violin.

The journey continued as media artist, professor Paul Landon took us to Arctic landscapes in the Cold War era, where military demands employed the “perceived nothingness” of supposedly uniform expanses of dazzling snow, as the DEW (Distant Early Warning) system was erected across Alaska and Canada; a massive effort turning self-sustaining ecosystems into a backdrop for the demonstration of power and cutting-edge technology.

For the extended lunch break, Paul sent us on a mission:

– Go for a walk in the neighbourhood and look for an empty space that resonates with you; document what you find, so that you can present it to the group; stay with your chosen spot for a while, trying to perceive, understand and interpret it; from this experience, think of a public intervention to amplify, alter, celebrate or comment on its particular emptiness.

And so we did.

Two hours later, the group reassembled to share the documented emptinesses: an inaccessible yard; a snow-covered balcony; a construction pit; a beanie hat lying in the street, lost from the head it used to protect; a gap in the flow of consumer goods in a vendor machine…

Above: Prof. Paul Landon sharing pictures from his personal collection of emptinesses
Below: an emptiness captured by Caitlin McHugh

We shared photos, and more: we shared, unguardedly, our sustained attention, our awareness towards qualities and emotions, our personal renderings – stirring interest, reflections, compassion, and friendly laughter – in a flow already present yesterday, now broadening and deepening like a river.

For my own part, this workshop remains a highlight; first, spending time on my own in the midst of these intense days, and then returning, respirited, to co-create with to peers, now become friends.

Duplicity “emptiness” excursion along Grünewaldstrasse – Paulsenstrasse – Rückertstrasse – Brentanostrasse
(photos by HHW.)

A coffee break, then another workshop: Phenomenographies of Absence and Duplicity. Re-drawing Post-Communist Industrial Ruins by architect Monica Tușinean. Drawing and tracing paper rolled out all along the table, graphite pens and thick black markers distributed, instructions given…

Above: re-imagining Romanian industrial heritage sites by drawing “phenomenographic vignettes”,
workshop by Monica Tușinean
Below: Essi Nuutinen gives us monsters

The playful excitement of the drawing workshop was gently redirected into focused common attention by Tinka Harvard, serving as moderator for the programme’s last section. As eyes turned back to the projection screen and the room fell silent, Essi Nuutinen introduced us to the Icelandic finngálkn, or onocentaur; a hybrid human-animal being, signifier of inherent duplicity and vehicle for imaginative moral thinking; a creature of folklore and Christian allegories appearing in the mediaeval book known as the Physiologus. The Icelandic manuscript in itself carries a story of transformation, as it went from being a valued keeper of knowledge, to having its pages torn apart and perforated by hundreds of tiny holes – surviving the centuries repurposed to separate coarse meal from finer… a sieve. A membrane.

After moving upstairs to another venue – the DanceLab – the intertwined themes of ethos, body, and mediaeval history were continued by Lindsey Drury, in her performance lecture Bitter Gall: Dance and Colonial Nausea. History inherited as the “past-in-body-present”; the body, a receptacle torn by conflicting forces; ethos, the values and practices that sifts out the self.

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From Lindsey Drury’s performance lecture Bitter Gall: Dance and Colonial Nausea

I cannot reduce this performance lecture into words; I will not even make an attempt. But it stays in my sieve, like the coarse and nutritious elements of stone-ground wholemeal – not to be disposed of, not to throw up, but to be digested over time. I will carry it with me, as a part of who I am, for times to come.

For a final vignette, I return to an engraving visible in one of the photos above: Sebald Beham’s The Peasants’ Feast (month of December). I see the woman. I see her steady gaze beholding her witless, spewing partner, while leading him forward in dance; her expression does not tell of any judgment.

Duplicity / Duplicität Symposium (day two of three)

art, recent work, time-out

Come the second day of this adventure… beginning at 10am sharp with Elsewhere as structure: a panel on coloniality, migration and distance, with two of the speakers present online from Southeast Asia. Urban ethnographer Dr. Elisa Bertuzzo opened the panel with another flip of perspectives, recounting how colonizers of the past proudly filled Europe’s novel, prestigious botanical gardens with “exotic” plants – while today’s immigrants are accused of spreading “invasive” species when growing kitchen vegetables from their home places in South European backyards. PhD student, architect, and designer Lu Lin shared her work on dual belongings and cross-cultural design proposals, carried out between China’s Wenzhou region and Italy, together with immigrants and returnees. Concludingly, Dr. Theol. Shiluinla Jamir reflected on Lifestyle as Resistance (an intriguing essay by Prof. Veena Talwar Oldenburg in 1990), raising questions on how moral life is performed in a socio-spatial sphere of “remoteness”, and what it could be to lead a good life.

From the “Elsewhere as Structure” panel: hybrid meeting preparations;
two slides and a close-up from Elisa Bertuzzo’s presentation;
a mapping exercise shared by Lu Lin (all photos by HHW.)

After lunch, the programme divided into three parallel tracks in the Graduate Students’ Panels. I sadly missed out on the Epistemologies and the Erasures panels, as I followed four presentations on Embodiments – by Sophie Schultze-Allen, Caitlin McHugh, Tinka Harvard and Cadenza Zhao – insightfully moderated by Prof. Paul Landon and artist Jody Wood, with beautiful exchanges also between the panelists.

Sophie Schultze-Allen on “Decolonial Ecologies in Dance”, and feedback snapshots from Cadenza Zhao’s presentation on “Embodiment of Duplicity” (all photos by HHW.)

After a coffee break – offering some time to share reflections more informally – we all gathered to listen to presentations on Distance, Performance and Documentation by PhD student and theatre director Omid Mashhadi (Dokumentartheater Berlin), and visual artist Dr. Kerry Guinan (Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary, Gothenburg-Stockholm); again, generating many thoughts as well as lively exchanges.

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Slide from Mashhadi’s rehearsal work with Ukrainian refugees at the Dokumentartheater Berlin;
participants taking notes;
a slide with content creators from Nepal, Egypt and Ukraine on live video stream, from Guinan’s work “Portraits”;
snapshots from discussion between Mashhadi and Guinan (all photos by HHW.)

To complete this abundance of experiences and perspectives, we were finally invited by artist Jody Wood to calculate our Virtual Credits and Residual Guilt Reserve in her workshop Abrechnungsbüro – an engaging, thought-provoking and fun exercise, followed up by a conversation between the artist and philosopher-writer Lieke Knijnenburg. Aptly moderated by PhD student Sofia Attolini, it also involved participants, and continued well into the Berlin evening, during dinner at a nearby Chinese family restaurant…

Above: “Abrechnungsbüro” snapshots
Below: social practice artist Jody Wood and composer Olga Krashenko in following discussion
(all photos by HHW.)

…and we still have a full day ahead in this symposium. More to follow…

Duplicity / Duplicität Symposium (day one of three)

art, recent work, time-out

Time is almost 2 pm, and we’re at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft of the Freie Uni. Berlin: a building once known as the Haus der Deutschen Forschung – in the years of WWII containing a lecture hall and a library, a ballroom, a casino, fifty offices and an air raid shelter; and, according to journalist Ernst Klee, housing a “cover-up community”, where “an enormous ‘degree of agreement between politics and science'” took place.
Zur Geschichte des Instituts für Theaterwissenschaft

Today, on January 29th, 2026, the coffee table is set outside the DanceLab, and name tags are waiting to be written and attached. People arrive, crossing the imposing foyer to find their way, continuing upwards via the symmetrical double staircases, heading for our more modest localities on the top floor. The footsteps and voices, the greetings and questions and answers tell of uncertainties as well as excitement.

Within an hour, we have welcomed most of our participants. It’s time to move; we’re going to the Berlin-Brandenburg Office for Everyday Culture, where the recently installed director Jonas Tinius will host the first session of the Duplicity symposium…

Due to EU General Data Protection Regulations, I’ll share only a few photos from the actual session here; Dr. Orlando Vieira Francisco (i2ADS Research Institute in Art, Design and Society, University of Oporto) presenting on Formenvielfalt-Farbenvielfalt: New Ecologies from the Museum to Artistic Research – an artistic line of thought, which (to my understanding) touched in a very personal way on the polarity between form and colour / drawing and painting / discerning and integrating… followed by Dr. Monica Tușinean (architect and researcher at the University of Stuttgart), sharing her work on post-communist industrial ruins in Romania – from which I borrow a slide (below).

Slide with hare borrowed from Monica Tușinean’s presentation “Phenomenographies of Absence and Duplicity”

Dr. Jonas Tinius both opened and closed the panel, first by presenting the (Para-)Archive as a site for investigations into how archives come into being; and, eventually, by taking the whole audience on a guided tour in the Archive’s enchanting basement.

Click the link, and follow Jonas Tinius along on an earlier tour in the Archive’s basement:
euroethnoberlin Landesstelle Re-Opening!

For those of us foreseeing (and lucky) enough to have reserved a space, the evening continued in a Wedding apartment with performance artist and cook Joël Verwimp’s In-home dinner and artist presentation WHEN IS A SHIRT? Collective Futures of Fascism.

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Joël Verwimp, “WHEN S A SHIRT? Collective Futures of Fascism” performance
Photo credits: Essi Nuutinen

Duplicity / Duplicität Symposium (Day 0)

art, time-out, upcoming

After a final round of proofreading, the whole batch of programmes is printed out; and so is the letter that will be read out loud to accompany Joël’s in-home performance tomorrow. Coffee, tea, snacks and fruit are purchased and brought to the Freie Uni. Signs showing the way to all locations are made and printed, and mounted on doors and signposts inside the building. The nametags and pens are ready for use. Joël has done his shopping, too, and now prepares the performance dinner.

One more thing: Monica’s workshop requires two rolls of paper; one normal drawing paper, and one transparent, the kind that architects use. Tinka and I head out in the city to find it; it’s already dusk, as we slip along a rivulet through an area of allotment gardens. We find the store and pick up the paper rolls – Monica confirming over the phone they’re the right ones – and then start on our way back… but in our excitement, we keep walking on and on, missing a left turn and crossing the river before we find ourselves back on the map again.

This city of Berlin – in itself a cluster of townships, gathered around the river Spree and her smaller siblings, sprawling out towards the lakes and wetlands – may be more imbued with history than any other place I’ve visited. Also, much of what I remember from central Stockholm in the 1960’s and 70’s is still present here; the small backyard workshops and industrial buildings; the old, sometimes (not always) dilapidated houses with stone tilings, glass mosaics and flights of stairs disappearing into darkness; the ruderal spaces – neither parks nor gardens, but tiny spots of wilderness living on by their own – and the geographical proximity between vastly different urban structures and communities, that one may experience in just passing from one block to another.

Yes, a long and busy day… and tomorrow, it will begin for real.

Nach Berlin

time-out, upcoming

January 25th, 2026; leaving home.

January 26th, 2026; Good Morning, Berlin!

Praxis of Social Imaginaries, Winter Session 2025

art, recent work, time-out

On March 5th to 9th, the Praxis circle gathered for another Winter Session – the last one within this three year cycle. Once more, we were hosted by the Sigtuna Foundation; a center for culture, research and education, with roots in the Christian ecumenical movement of the early 20th century. The Foundation resides in a cluster of monastery-like buildings, situated among pine trees on a hillside in the mediaeval city of Sigtuna (Sweden)… a venue quite congruent with the texts we were reading. And the book was A Description of the Northern Peoples, written by Olaus Magnus – the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden – during his exile in Rome, and published in 1555.

Woodcut from Olaus Magnus’ ‘A Description…’ showing a party of Scricfinnias hunting on ski;
artist unknown, image source Wikimedia Commons

The book consists of a very large number of short chapters, covering topics such as The Five Languages of the Northern Kingdoms, On Preventing Filthy Ditties and Of the Sea-Magicians. The text was approached from various perspectives (as usual within the Praxis study circle) and further processed through workshops in writing, drawing and listening. A chapter on sword and fire dances generated an improvised solo dance by Dr. Laura Hellsten; and the mediaeval Festivals of Greenery were discussed and enacted while enjoying the first sunny day of spring. In present time, Ramadan had begun and a handful of the participants were observing the lent during daylight. Luckily, dinners were served after sunset, and we could all share plentiful, tasty meals in the dining hall… as the new moon was quietly waxing.

Woodcut from Olaus Magnus’ ‘A Description…’ showing a ship running aground after being misled by a fire on the shore,
and men of the Finnmark attacking the supposed pirates onboard with stones in their hands.;
artist unknown, image source Wikimedia Commons

Olaus Magnus’ original text was accompanied by woodcuts, made under supervision of the author himself especially for this first edition; an unusual feature that most probably contributed to make the book a success. As can be seen, the scenes were abundant with vivid detail… About one hundred of these pictures actually originate from an earlier publication of Olaus Magnus: the Carta Marina. Printed in Venice in 1539 – after twelve years of work – it is in itself a rich description of places, creatures and people; an almost overwhelming compilation of material provided from memory by the banished archbishop. This map provided the starting point of a session on Magic, facilitated by Dr. Lindsey Drury, where we connected events described in the book with the actual places on the map – and, again, with our own experiences of traditions and histories handed down over generations…

Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina, printed in Venice (1539) and later hand-coloured;
artist unknown, image source Wikimedia Commons

My own contribution followed shortly after this session, and included a listening exercise borrowed from Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening scores; a silent walk along the hillside groves; and providing handmade booklets for making personal notes while finding one’s way back to the Foundation. The idea was to turn from an analytical mode, into attention in the present – shifting from the realm of the scholar (Olaus Magnus) in order to approach the mindset of a person closer to weather, shifts of light and temperature, and other-than-human life…

(In fact, I believe that the indigenous “magic” perceived by foreigners may – more often than not? – be the result of close attention paired with traditional knowledge.)

Spirit Land performed by Nina Nordvall Vahlberg, Emma Göransson, Olli Liljeström, Carolina Bjon, Minna Hokka, Marianne Maans, Kari Mäkiranta and Frank Berger

In the next-to-final day of the Winter Session, the Praxis circle was invited to take part of Vuoiŋŋalaš Eanadat / Spirit Land, an artistic collaboration between two of our co-participants: textile artist / artistic researcher Emma Göransson and composer / musician Frank Berger. The performance also included a number of musicians from Finland and Sàpmi, and was open to the public as a part of Sigtuna Foundation’s cultural program.

The auditorium was crowded, and the afternoon sun gently spread its light through the textiles as music and jojk began to fill the air. For two years, Emma and Frank have been working towards this performance – and now was the moment! Colours, textures and sound intertwined, invoking the visible and invisible landscapes of the North. In Emma’s own words: “The three cosmological spheres in traditional Sami mythology – Jabbmeájjmo/Underworld, Eana/Earth, and Albmi/Heaven – are represented by monumental weavings, here set to music. The voices of the landscapes are heard anew, restored and brought to life, but changed.”

Afterwards, Dr. Hellsten moderated a talk between Frank, Emma, and Dr. Shiluinla Jamir – another valued member of the Praxis circle, who graciously added the perspective of a person from the indigenous Naga people of Northeast India. Listening to Frank’s music, and the jojks of Emma and Nina Nordvall Vahlberg; watching the delicate weavings floating in light; and following the exchange of indigenous experiences… were some of the memorable moments of hope and beauty that will stay with me.

Praxis of Social Imaginaries, Summer Session 2024 @Løgumkloster I

art, recent work, time-out

the Praxis group at work in Løgumkloster Folkehøjskole, Denmark; photo credit Laura Hellsten

Early August, and I’m landing home after attending the 2024 Summer Session of the Nordic Summer University; after yet another week of working together with the Praxis group (or, more formally: Circle 3, The Praxis of Social Imaginaries. Cosmologies, Othering and Liminality – one out of ten ongoing study circles within the NSU)… Our focal point this time has been A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas – a fiery document from the 16th century, intended to alert the Spanish king to innumerable atrocities committed by his conquistadores in the Americas.

Seventeen people came together for this occasion, bringing perspectives from Peru, the US, South Africa, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Finland and Sweden… Over and over, I feel such a great gratitude for being part of this group – diverse, experienced, and creative as it is; acting together as an instrument for processing the text, even when the subject matter touches on possible conflict lines such as religion, race, or the legacies of colonial history; finding out, along the way, how community research could be conducted in a transdisciplinary setting.

Ever since the study circle began in 2023, co-facilitators Lindsey Drury and Laura Hellsten have offered multiple approaches to the text. This time, participants were actively invited to take the lead for a morning or afternoon class – resulting in reading sessions and workshops staged from very diverse fields of professional experience: for instance, highlighting the text sections about legal structures, or experiences of ‘the first encounter’; introducing complementary texts and imagery from early encyclopedic efforts to document indigenous culture* – thus inviting the group to visual and performative interpretations – as well as movement and mindfulness exercises; not to forget the practises of reading aloud, listening, talking, and writing….

It should also be mentioned, that the Nordic Summer University is open to parents bringing their kids – there’s always a Children’s Circle welcoming the young ones. However, our circle of adults had the great joy of hosting little J. (two years and a half) who preferred staying around his parent. His gentle presence, communicative skills and stunning dance moves gracefully gave us a model for human interplay.

above: dance historian Lindsey Drury presenting documents from the early encounters between the Mesoamericans and the Europeans, along with later and contemporary pictures of mestizo dance cultures;
below: local micro-examples of 20th and 21st century Danish culture

…and if photos are lacking from most working sessions, it may be because then we were all immersed in the actual co-creating of knowledge…

*specifically, the Huexotzinco Codex, the Florentine Codex, the Codex Azcatitlan and the Codex Telleriano Remensis

Praxis of Social Imaginaries, Winter Session 2024: Oulu Review

art, recent work, time-out

This winter session of the NSU Praxis circle was hosted by the Oulu Museum of Art. Here, we spent four days reading, writing and discussing; twenty persons from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Some of us were ‘oldies’ in this group, other ‘newbies’; some were Christians, others Muslims, some from yet other religious/cultural backgrounds… Earlier Praxis sessions have been dedicated to the tales of monks and merchants,* but this time, we turned to the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406); a highly learned jurist and historian, possessing extensive knowledge as well as a keen mind – and sometimes also named ‘the father of sociology’. For six centuries, the Muqaddimah has served as an introduction not only to history, but also to the methodologies of empiricism and critical thinking.

Obviously, a few days will be far from enough for the study of such a book . Circle facilitators Laura and Lindsey offer different approaches to help us along: reading aloud together, reading thematically from keywords, reading individually while making notes, reading in pairs while walking… One of the group reading sessions deals with Ibn Khaldun’s treatise on ‘the craft of midwifery’ – a short but extremely interesting portion of the text. Lindsey suggests that the women in the group take turns in reading, while the men listen in silence. Fareeda begins, followed by Justina, Tinka, Didi, myself, Puja, Dorcus, Emma…

“Midwifery is a craft that shows how to proceed in bringing the new-born child gently out of the womb of his mother and how to prepare the things that go with that.
/…/
This is as follows: When the embryo has gone through all its stages and is completely and perfectly formed in the womb /…/ it seeks to come out, because God implanted such a desire in (unborn children). But the opening is too narrow for it, and it is difficult for (the embryo to come out). It often splits one of the walls of the vagina by its pressure, and often the close connection and attachment of its covering membranes with the uterus are ruptured. All of this is painful and hurts very much. /…/ In this connection, the midwife may offer some succour by massaging the back, the buttocks and the lower extremities adjacent to the uterus. She thus stimulates the force pushing the embryo out /…/ She uses as much strength as she thinks is required by the difficulty (of the process).
/…/
[The] midwife undertakes to massage and correct (the new-born child) until every limb has resumed its natural shape and the position destined for it /…/ After that, she goes back to the woman in labour and massages and kneads her, so that the membranes of the embryo may come out.
/…/
She then returns to the child. She anoints its limbs with oils and dusts it with astringent powders, to strengthen it and to dry up the fluids of the uterus. /…/ She makes it swallow an electuary, in order to prevent its bowels from becoming obstructed and their walls from sticking together.
/…/
Then, she treats the woman in labour for the weakness caused by the labour pains and the pain that the separation causes her uterus. /…/ The midwife also treats the pain of the vagina that was torn and wounded by the pressure of (the child’s) coming out.
/…/
One can see that this craft is necessary to the human species in civilisation. Without it, the individuals of the species could not, as a rule, come into being…”

Clear voices transmitting substantial knowledge in a space of concentrated listening. When reading is finished, discussion begins. We note the qualities of the text; the care and factualness, the absence of misogyny. We wonder how Ibn Khaldun managed to collect this information? We compare the practices of Maghreb in the 14th century to our own – diverse – experiences. We keep listening, now to each other; male and female voices weaving invisible patterns of expanded understanding… A precious moment in time.

Apart from the reading sessions, we spend little time in the city. Our accommodation is located on one of the islands nearby, in three comfortable cabins close to the seashore. Each day, four or five from the group form a cooking team, to prepare and serve a ‘dinner keynote’: a Croatian pasta dish, a Peruvian dinner, a veggie curry… Communal cooking is another great way of getting together, and the significance of the evening meal goes even deeper as three of us are celebrating Ramadan.

After five intense days, we return home. The work continues.