Praxis of Social Imaginaries, Summer Session 2024 @Løgumkloster I

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, Summer session 2023 (Palanga)

art, recent work, time-out, upcoming

End of July, and a group of scholars and artists meet up to continue the journey that begun in March: studying the Praxis of Social Imaginaries. Observing our own times through the lens of mediaeval travel accounts, this transdisciplinary research project is now turning to William of Rubruck and Marco Polo – both speaking to us from the 13th century.

“The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world”

Marco Polo, “The Travels”

Summer session readings: the travels of friar William of Rubruck (photo credit Laura Hellsten) and Marco Polo’s Book of the Marvels of the World

A diverse bunch of people we are, actually representing all continents except Oceania; diverse also in age and cultural background, not to mention other kinds of situatedness… Reading under the pine trees in Palanga Botanical Garden brings out knowledge and memories from Sápmi and the Amazonas. Listening to voices from the 13th century brings out concern for the silence(d) in history. The ‘brave space’ of genuine dialogue brings out deep emotions of grief, joy and care… as well as the interchange of intellectual perspectives.

The Praxis project will continue for another two years – partly within the alternating Winter and Summer sessions of the Nordic Summer University, and partly in parallel side projects; next gathering planned in November, at Sigtunastiftelsen north of Stockholm. I’ll have some mapping work to do before that… For now, I wish to cherish the creative flow that emerged from sitting beside Ilona Blumgrund, and our thinking together swiftly and wordlessly.

With great gratitude to Ilona, Adriana, Jackie, Louie, Emilia, Roberto, Tinka, Eduardo, Dorcus – and, of course, co-facilitators Lindsey Drury and Laura Hellsten – à la prochaine!

Mapping on the beach; how to realize common values in colonizing the future

About the Nordic Summer University
This particular study circle is but one out of a dozen, which together constitute the Nordic Summer University. From July 27th to August 3rd, the NSU Summer session 2023 was held in Palanga, Lithuania. Keynote speakers Ekaterina Kouznetsova, Amanda Valentin and Epp Annus all focused on different aspects of democracy in our time; academic freedom in an authoritarian society, election monitoring, and Russia’s colonial engagements and imaginaries of supremacy. In daytime, study circles worked independently (and sometimes joined). In the evenings, cultural programs were offered – such as music, workshops and multilingual readings (a practice introduced by Lara Hoffman last summer)… Together with Alina Kalachova, I conducted a mapping event which made us think, as well as cry and smile. A valuable experience.

Keynote speaker Epp Annus presenting a poem by late writer Victoria Amelina (killed in Russian strike on Kramatorsk, July 1st); and a joint reading of short stories on the beach

About Palanga and Hotel Vysuris
The venue and the city itself deserve some attention, too. Hotel Vysuris, built under the Soviet regime, stays almost unaltered since the 1970’s; history alive in many aspects, also in the struggle of the kitchen staff to navigate between different instances of need and want. The long applause they got at the final gala dinner was well earned.

(above) Vysuris restaurant and the last evening’s gala dinner
(below) Some features of the labyrinthic, circular building

And finally, some touristic views from walking in Palanga – and a treasured gift (thank you so much, Dorcus!):

Praxis of Social Imaginaries, Winter session 2023 (Oslo)

art, recent work, time-out, upcoming

Last month’s notes from the conference in Åbo/Turku briefly mentioned a new research project launched by Laura Hellsten. Here’s a little more on that…

Laura’s scientific approach is shaped by her dual competence as a dancer and a Doctor in Systematic Theology. While she holds a position at Åbo Akademi University, part of her current research will be conducted within the framework of the Nordic Summer University (aka the NSU). Actually, this project has already begun; in early March 2023, the first gathering of NSU Circle 3 Praxis of Social Imaginaries; Cosmologies, Othering and Liminality took place in Oslo. Lindsey Drury – post-doc and co-facilitator of this study circle – is an early modernist historian, and an educated dancer as well. Their common work evolves around mediaeval accounts from travels into ‘unknown lands’; aiming at transdisciplinarity, the methodology incorporates reading aloud, various modalities of movement, academic lectures and discussions, and…

The Hereford Mappa Mundi – a mediaeval world map,
conceived in the very place where Gerald of Wales spent the last part of his life (although nearly a century later) –
presented in a keynote lecture by historian Line Cecilie Engh; picture made available by Wikimedia Commons

…and more? Future will tell.

In this first Praxis session, a number of scholars and artists from different fields and places processed the tales of Gerald of Wales: a monk travelling uncivilized Ireland by the end of the 12th century – reporting back to his learned colleagues and to the English king; picturing Éire and the Irish through a lens of curiosity, religious zeal and practical political thinking.

Here’s my own recap from our five of days walking, talking, listening, disputing and dancing in wintery Oslo:

Domus Theologica (University of Oslo) hosted the event

Streets of Oslo – a signpost pointing the way to a bomb shelter;
Saint Olav guarding sewages and waters underground; icy footway; a cool cat by night

Saint Olaf, king of Norway, accompanies us, as we walk the streets – occasionally trodding along his old pilgrimage path, leading all the way from here to Olaf’s grave in Nidaros (Trondhjem). In his youth, Olaf sailed the Baltic and the North Sea as a fierce warrior, before being baptized and returning to Norway as a Christian king. His image, cast in iron, can be seen on every lid covering the descents to the city’s system of underground sewage pipes. The waters that have cleaned our bodies – or passed through them – is kept from sight and smell in those sewers. Meanwhile, Aker river running through the city, once heavily polluted, is now restored to be the ‘green lung’ of the urban area…

How can one atone for the wrongdoings of history? As we walk and talk, I think this may be the beginning of a pilgrimage.

Limestone wall of Old Aker Church – the oldest existing building in Oslo,
erected by the mediaeval pilgrim route

For the closing summary, I did an ad hoc mapping on a classroom blackboard – picturing our experiences as a group: reading Gerald’s tales, listening to Viveca Servatius’ lecture on Hildegard of Bingen, seeing lovers in a churchyard, meeting dogs friendly and angry, slipping and sliding in a park, dancing between graves… Other participants helped me fill in the empty spots.

Slipping along an icy slope

Proceed with care!

Reading aloud in groups in Old Aker churchyard

Noted by participant: many fathers walk their kids in Oslo

Noted by participant: many people walk their dogs in Oslo

Noted by participant: I got locked in inside seminar building for some time

Dancing in a graveyard, and lecture on Hildegard of Bingen’s musicology

Oslo architecture, and seminar group seated around a table

Loving couple under a tree in churchyard

Next gathering will take place in Palanga, Lithuania, when July turns August. See you there!

final notes from the Nordic Summer University 2022

time-out

From the grounds and the chapel of Rønningen folkehøgskole
(August 2022)

This journey was finished already two months ago; I found the photos when preparing for the next one. A journey to unchartered places – announcements will be made in due time…

In good company with Laura Hellsten

Notes from the Nordic Summer University II

art, curating, recent work, time-out

During the week-long NSU session, I got engaged in a couple of ‘ad hoc’ projects (in addition to my presentation within Circle 7, which was the ticket to my participation here). The first one happened in the context of a cultural evening.* Together with a number of courageous persons, I staged an updated performance of a multilingual poetry reading first realized in August 2014.**

2014 poster – for full story, see Training the Fundamentals of a Democratic Society

The original project sprung from a poem by Ukrainian author Tanya-Mariya Litvinyuk. In this re-staging, Ms. Litvinyuk is actually present through a sound recording sent from Kyiv the day before; her voice is heard from the laptop at the beginning. Then follows an English translation, read by Dr. Lucy Lyons, after which the English reading proceeds with ten words (all singled out from Ms. Litvinyuk’s poem). Back in 2014, those ten words sparked a collective writing process in a group of civil rights activists, and the poetic result of their joined efforts was translated from English into all languages spoken within the group. Here, I’m reading the Swedish version – followed by a fresh translation into Belarusian by NSU participant Alina Kalachova, created for this occasion. Crucial contributions (although not visible on screen) were also made by Maru Mushtrieva.

photo credit: Alina Kalachova

photo credit: Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt

The multilingual reading evening engaged about 35 attendants, and took place in the school’s chapel.

My second ‘ad hoc’ engagement was in Disa Kamula’s workshop on Co-writing the future, where my contribution was the real-time mapping of an unfolding utopian narrative… From the resulting vision of a bright future, I finally erased all details but three:
…people of all ages…
…essential work… (cleaning up, that is)
…future generations in focus…

Slow walking with an old mother walking with walker

The unknown cleaner with their cleaning trolley

Focusing on the young’uns

Mapping ‘Visionary Tampere Region’ workshop; resulting World Map,
and workshop leader Disa Kamula collecting workshop material afterwards.

What did I gather from this week? Art is knowledge, and artistic research is here to stay. Democratic structures are essential, although never perfect. Disco dancing is fun – thanks, Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt!
And the map is never complete.

—

* The NSU multilingual poetry evening was organized by Lara Hoffman, PhD student at Háskólanum á Akureyri, Iceland; she is also the editor of Ós – The Journal, a magazine which features works of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and artworks in multiple languages.

** The 2014 Evening of Modern Ukrainian Poetry was organized by Yulia Oleksandriv and Julia Shevchenko, in collaboration with Stockholm International Library.

Notes from the Nordic Summer University I

art, recent work, time-out

As July turned August, my Latvian Easter experience brought me further, to Oslo; from an intimate three days’ winter session, to one full week of intense exchange in a much larger group of practitioners and academics within the Nordic Summer University.

It took two different trains, a replacement bus, and finally the ‘trikk’ (Norwegian for ‘tram’) to reach Rønningen folkehøgskole at the outskirts of Oslo.

The NSU is an independent academic institution, since 1950 nomadically alternating between venues in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Among its founders and early pioneers were Johan Galtung – principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies – and Nobel prize laureate physicist Niels Bohr. Already in its beginnings, the NSU manifested the idea of interdisciplinarity; and to this day, it has remained open and playful, yet academically stringent; and (not least) with an interestingly democratic organization, free from carrying much administrative weight.

Glimpses from Rønningen folkehøgskole, run by the YWCA/YMCA of Norway

At this NSU Summer session, ten ongoing study circles gathered around themes such as Urban Studies: Between Creativity and Power; Nordic Environmental Ethics; Decolonizing Social Work... and The experiential in artistic practice and research: methods, knowledges and reflective processes – Circle 7, that is, where I took part. (The eleventh circle is the famous Children’s circle, where participants’ kids gather to have a good time too, and sometimes to contribute to the evening programme.)

photo credit: Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt

Random moments from a week with Circle 7

There was a full schedule almost every day of the week: for each circle, three lectures/workshops daily, followed by a common cultural evening programme, or the gathering of NSU’s General Assembly (where decisions were taken on next year’s activities and new board members and other in-charge functions were elected). In between, we could benefit from taking a walk in the surrounding areas, take a fresh swim in the river Aker… and for one day off, make excursions in the city.

…to be continued…

Photo credit: Elina Saloranta

Easter Experience

art, recent work, time-out

To my joyful surprise, I recently got the opportunity to attend a Winter Symposium with the Nordic Summer University. It took place in Latvian countryside, close to a natural reserve (and out of reach for the internet).
The venue, of course, is an extremely powerful tool in the set-up of such a gathering; framing the whole process, contributing to how knowledge is produced, shared and interpreted.

The overall theme for the NSU Study Circle 7 is The experiential in artistic practice: methods, knowledges and reflective processes. Over three days of Easter, a lovely bunch of artistic researchers, academics and practitioners presented their research and shared practices – as well as hot sauna and icy swims.

Learning about feminist strategies by printmaking, about regenerative farming in Latvia as a base for textile art, and the importance and implications of Wanderlust… Learning from Finnish and Latvian dancers, British artists, a theatre director from Tampere and a Polish philosopher… This has been a unique and inspiring experience in so many ways – not least thanks to Ulla, our exceptional chef! I hope to meet again…