ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 8

One of the first things I learned when coming to Longyearbyen, is that it is a very sought after place by creatives. The Arctic is a destination where many people come to re-discover or realise themselves, and I am not necessarily excluding myself from this category. As a result, the community here is continually being approached by artists, researchers and journalists with project proposals which, although interesting, often require the extraction of knowledge, time and resources from the locals. While this is generally welcomed, it is also important that we as visiting creatives do not only seek to benefit from the community’s goodwill, but that we also give something back and contribute positively to making Longyearbyen a vibrant town to live.

As part of our residency with ARTICA, we are obliged to share our research and/or practice with the local community in the form of talks, workshops, performances, lectures, exhibitions etc. One really nice thing that Charlotte, the Director of ARTICA said, was that the best thing a resident artist can leave behind is not necessarily a finished artwork, but an experience. Nothing is more valuable than exchanging skills and knowledge. As a result, ARTICA hosts a range of diverse workshops and events, most recently a mooncake workshop with visiting pastry chef Ethan Kan, as well as a sun medallion workshop for kids in order to welcome the return of the sun after a long, dark arctic winter.

Photo: ARTICA

As my residency contribution, I decided that I wanted to host an introductory linocut course. I truly believe in the power of craft and collective workshops, and that the art making, maybe even more so than the art itself, makes for happier human beings and better communities. The reason why I chose to focus on linocut printmaking, is because it is a printmaking technique that does not require the use of a printing press or toxic solvents. It can be done at home using a hand-printing tool, and the inks can be cleaned up with soap and water. My aim was therefore to give the workshop participants the foundation and confidence needed to be able to master the art of linocut printmaking at home, without needing access to a professional print studio.

I wanted the course to run over two days in order to go more in-depth and take the class beyond a very elementary introduction to linocut. During the first day we learned how to make a basic single-coloured linocut print by experimenting with different tools for mark making and different methods for printing. On the second day we experimented with different ways of printing a multi-coloured print, using layering and jigsaw puzzle techniques, as well as applying colour gradients.

Photo: ARTICA

I am so impressed with how many amazing prints our wonderful participants managed to produce in the course of two half-day sessions! It was also great for me getting to meet some more of Longyearbyen’s long-term residents. It is fantastic to see what ARTICA, and the workshops and events which are hosted here, means for so many in this town. It has grown into a truly wonderful community, much thanks to the current staff, Charlotte and Lisa. That being said, with Svalbard having a higher turnover of people than other places, they stress the importance that people form an affinity and positive relation with ARTICA itself as a cultural institution and social meeting place, and not just with the individuals who work here. I truly hope my workshop helped contribute to this, and that many will continue with printmaking after this weekend.

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 7

Every time you think you are getting used to the landscape here, it changes. Just as I was getting used to the view of the still blue water which spring had brought with it, the beginning of this week greeted us with massive packs of drift ice which had swept into the fjord overnight. While creating a bit of a havoc for the smaller boats, the big blocks of ice looked spectacular and dramatic - just what you imagine the Arctic to be. It very much helped set the tone for my next print.

This week I paid another visit to the Svalbard Museum and the North Pole Expedition Museum to conduct some research. Since many decades back, Svalbard has been a launching point for (mainly masculine) attempts at polar exploration, and a stage (in the double meaning of the word) for conquering the great white unknown. Both museums contain some beautiful prints, objects and images which tell the tales of early polar expeditions - such as those of Walter Wellman, Solomon August Andrée, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Otto Torell, Roald Amundsen, Fridjof Nansen and Umberto Nobile. They all used Svalbard as a base for their further ventures northwards.

From the Svalbard Museum:

Nowadays we know that the North Pole is in the middle of an ocean and is covered in ice, but early explorers had no idea what they might find. Open sea? A huge hole? Undiscovered land? Were there inhabitants, previously unknown peoples? Serious research designed to find answers is often overshadowed by sensational, or even foolhardy expeditions to the north. Financial backers were often more inspired by narratives that bolstered national pride than by sober pursuit of research data.

To me, the most dramatic and emotionally charged of all Arctic expeditions must be the Andrée Expedition of 1897, in which Swedish explorer Solomon August Andrée and his two men attempted to fly over the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon departing from Svalbard’s Danskøya (Dane’s Island). While a bold and ingenious (and some might say unhinged) idea ahead of its time, the balloon had severe technical issues which Andrée supposedly attempted to conceal before launch - the forces of royal sponsorships and press publicity weighing heavily enough for him to take the risk of flying. Once the balloon soared out of view behind the mountains, Andrée and his team, consisting of Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel, were never seen again. The trajectory of their journey remained a mystery for 33 years, until the crew of a Norwegian whaling and research vessel accidentally stumbled upon their campsite at Kvitøya (White Island) in eastern Svalbard, where they found skeletal remains, photographic negatives, journals and a vast supply of food and clothes. I would heartily recommend reading Bea Uusma’s fantastic book on the subject, Expeditionen: min kärlekshistoria, in which she attempts to once and for all to solve the mystery of what led to their ultimate demise. She also features in a great episode about the expedition on Sveriges radio (in Swedish). Fragments of the balloon, made from varnished Chinese silk, can be seen in both the Svalbard Museum and the North Pole Expedition Museum. Seeing the fragments of fragile silk gave chills down my spine.

A fragment of Andrées balloon “The Eagle”, retrieved from Kvitøya. The balloon was custom-made in France from several layers of hand stitched, varnished Chinese silk.

While few of Earth’s places remain unexplored today, Svalbard and the idea of “North” still holds a mythical place to many. Svalbard, being both accessible and distant at the same time, has served as the perfect starting point for those wishing to explore the Arctic - now mostly for personal and creative growth rather than for national honour and glory - me being one of many.

The print that I am currently working is being created with all of these stories whirling around in my head. I found some stunning old photographs of the jagged mountains and glaciers around Magdalenefjorden in the Svalbard Museum Archives, and decided to use these as reference for my next mezzotint. By happy chance, I discovered that Magdalenefjorden is very close to Danskøya, from where Andrée launched his fatal balloon expedition. It is also the area where Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz first set eyes on Svalbard, which he then named Spitzbergen from its “spisse berg”, i.e. sharp jagged mountains.

With this information in mind, I have decided to incorporate fragments of contemporary illustrations from both Andrée’s expedition and Barentz’ discovery into the scenery - layering different histories together and charging the landscape with human narratives. After all, Svalbard’s nature, while beautiful on its own, has become a tableau and stage for human folly and ambition, being littered with tragic tales and crushed dreams.

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 6

There is a marked change in the air, and I think spring is finally coming to Svalbard! I can hear the water hitting the shore and smell the seaweed, my shoes are suddenly touching bare ground and I even hear birds chirping. It feels amazing, but at the same time Svalbard does not feel like such a distant exotic planet anymore. Maybe it also has a bit to do with the fact that I have now reached the halfway point in my residency, and the initial novelty is starting to wear off.

To enjoy the sun and warmer temperatures, our residency coordinator Lisa took us on a hike up to Platåberget just above Longyearbyen. Tarzan, our lovable but goofy husky companion, came along as polar bear guard. Unlike our previous hike up to Sarkofagen, we now enjoyed spectacular clear views and firmer snow, making this hike a lot less physically strenuous than the last. We also walked past Ninavarden, a cairn erected to commemorate a young girl from Oslo who was killed here by a polar bear in 1996. It serves as a stark reminder to always carry a rifle and remain alert, even if you are in the vicinity of the settlement.

With life being very much confined to Longyearbyen, I try to attend a lot of the cultural activities that are happening around town. Last week I saw the amazing stand-up show “Hold kjeft, det er Ibsen” by Liv Gundersen at Kulturhuset, which had made its way up here all the way from the National Theatre in Oslo. This week my residency colleague Ellen and I attended an after-work poetry workshop in the local library, as well as the vernissage of the exhibition “Tidslag” at Nordover Gallery. The exhibition, presenting a selection of photographs by Herta Lampert Grøndal, Leif Grøndal, their daughter Eva Grøndal and music by granddaughter Aggie Grøndal Peterson, seeks to give an overview of everyday life at Svalbard, tying together past and present on an island that has little to no collective continuous memory. These images also counteract the idea that Svalbard has always been strictly a male-dominated, company town settlement or a starting point for masculine dreams of polar exploration - it has also been a family-oriented society in which women and children have made a home for themselves. Sadly, many names and stories are lost, and many remain anonymous, because nobody stays here long enough to recall the past. Everyone is just a visitor passing through for a few months or years. I am very glad I got to attend the opening, and hear speeches from people who have formed close ties and roots with Svalbard - the Grøndals being one of the few families that have some sort of generational connection to this island.

While I have come to love Longyearbyen more than I ever thought I would, the first bouts of homesickness are starting to creep in. Maybe because I long for proper spring, and maybe because the friends I have made here left this week - most being fellow residency artists and writers whom I have become close to in a very short period of time. Together we have explored Svalbard and Longyearbyen, and shared and discussed the joys and tribulations of creating and producing. That is Svalbard for you - people come and go, and you constantly need to readjust. Just as the exhibition Tidslag conveys - the inhabitants of Longyearbyen are in a constant flux.

Luckily I have many exciting printmaking projects in the making, and with access to a beautiful print studio I know I will manage to keep myself happy and occupied for the remainder of my stay. I also have friends and family coming to visit from the mainland in May, which I am very much looking forward to. Finding highlights and setting daily goals is incredibly important - especially in an isolated place like Longyearbyen where I have so little physical freedom and space to roam on my own, and where my social network is a lot more fluid and temporary than at home. It is very much up to me to keep myself entertained and stimulated, and I find a lot of joy and meaning in my work. That being said, making art is not always pure unmitigated fun. Getting up and dragging yourself to the studio is not always easy - after all, work is work - even for artists. There is a lot of demotivating trial and error, a lot of mundane and physically strenuous preparatory steps, as well as the constant inner battle with the voice in your head putting a lot of pressure on you to perform and produce while you are on this once-in-a-lifetime sponsored residency. It can sometimes feel overwhelming, but what I do is break everything into small achievable tasks, and pick myself a few tasks to tackle each day. It may be something as trivial but necessary as “polish two copper plates” or “cover two copper plates with hard ground to let them dry overnight”. If I can just show up for myself to do those small assignments, I also feel that I gain momentum to commence on the next one on the list. And slowly, step by step, I can see a new print emerging.

The print I have been working on this week is yet another motif in which I have taken small illustrations from old maps of the North Sea, re-drawn them and placed them together in new constellations - this image focusing especially on the tempestuous nature of the seas and the great perils explorers put themselves in on their journey to explore the northernmost shores of the earth. Next week I am going to attempt something slightly more bigger and ambitious. I cut up some of the test prints I have produced so far in my residency, and created a collage incorporating my mezzotint mountains into my maritime compositions. I quite liked how they turned out, giving the compositions a different sense of depth, and also providing a stark visual contrast between the softness of the backdrop and the sharp lines of the foreground. I will try making a large print where I combine all of these different elements into one. I love how previous prints always direct you where to go next.

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 5

This week saw the last sunset for four months. From now on, the sun will be sitting higher and higher in the sky with each passing day, and falling asleep will prove increasingly difficult. To mark the occasion, we went on a late night stroll to enjoy the last beautiful plays of pastels which the setting sun throws over the snow. (The light here really is unbelievable and surreal, and impossible to capture on camera). We also walked past loads of adorable Svalbard reindeer. They are found only on Svalbard, and are the only type of reindeer native to Norway. They have adapted to harsh arctic conditions, and wander around Longyearbyen completely unfazed by people and noisy snowmobiles.

With the weather turning over the weekend, and powerful gusts of winds sweeping in over Longyearbyen, I have been enjoying my days in the studio. Although I have been going to Artica almost every day, Svalbard hits you with so many impressions that it takes a while for you to process things and translate this into artworks. I spent a lot of my first month just sightseeing and collecting information, looking for connections between prevalent themes here and the themes I have been exploring in my own art.

I have been mainly intrigued by the Arctic as a “stage” for exploration and geopolitics, as I very much link this to my own family history, which in many ways was formed by colonialism and geopolitical strife in and around Singapore. I see many resemblances and ironies between the European scramble for territories in South East Asia, and how we are now very protective of our resources and territories in the Arctic, as many powerful (Asian) nations are strategically placing themselves along the northeast passage as precious minerals and new sea routes are emerging with the melting ice.

Parallel to my research, I have also worked on developing a suitable visual language. Two whole weeks was spent creating a pretty large mezzotint, which is still a work in progress. The motif is based on old photos found in the digital archives of Svalbard Museum, and features a view from the old Svea mine. In it I have juxtaposted a series of figures - two 1920s Scandinavian coalminers, a 1980s Polish geologist, two 1930s English explorers, Amundsen and Nobile’s airship “Norge” which flew from Svalbard to the North Pole in 1926, and an airplane heading into the mountains. It could be the Russian Topolev which crashed into Operafjell in 1996, with the Scandinavian coalminers here watching their Russian and Ukrainian peers perish. Or it could be a modern tourist plane, the coalminers observing how the rising tourism industry is overtaking the dominant role they once held at Svalbard. It is an open-ended story, an attempt to draw lines between past and future, and how the Arctic as a stage for self-realization and geopolitical strife is as prevalent now as it was then.

From last week’s residency dinner and presentation at Artica, where I demonstrated how I had made and printed my mezzotint plate.

This week I decided to abandon mezzotint for a bit. While it is one of my favourite techniques, mezzotint tends to lock me into a slightly timid and naturalistic style. (It is also extremely time consuming). One of my goals before coming up here was to be a bit more bold and experimental, trying out different techniques and expressions and adopt a more playful approach to art. I also wanted to work more physically and less theoretically, letting the material and medium control the process more than a predetermined concept. I therefore decided to make some aquatint plates where I applied a hard ground marbling, letting the randomness of the marbled pattern determine the contents and composition of the image.

To me, the marbling was strongly reminiscent of water and oceans, and I reverted back to the research I did during my first week here when I visited Svalbard Museum and looked at various old maps of the Arctic regions. Using Pen Up on my Samsung pad, I photographed my marbled copper plates and made them part of digital collages where I added elements such as ships, polar bears and sea monsters from a variety of old northern maps. While I work with old techniques, I love the opportunities that digital tools open up to me. However, I always revert my digital sketches back to something physical, and through the printmaking process the final image takes on a life and visual quality of its own.

The ships I am using in my first composition are based off of ships from the Barentsz map. This map was created after the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz “accidentally” discovered Svalbard in 1596. The boats on the map are very small, and as I am making mine larger and more detailed, I had to study quite a few drawings of 16th century ships to get a grip of how all the numerous sailing mechanisms were connected. This is the first line etching I am doing in over a decade, and I have been enjoying the process so much!

This new project has been such a breath of fresh air to me. For a long time now I have felt the need to free myself from only working with portraits and personal family histories, as well as remove myself from the very naturalistic style which I sometimes tend to adhere to. I have been wanting to engage in a greater variety of subjects, and explore historical ways of stylizing imagery. I feel that these new images are a step towards that goal. Most importantly, the subject of sea faring, exploration and East-West relations still feels greatly personal to me. Still a bit on the fence about the final product, but that might just be because this visual style feels very new and different to me at the moment.

Colour test print of “Hic Sunt Ursi Albi” (“Here There Be Polar Bears”)

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 4

This little dot of buildings is Longyearbyen - the world’s northernmost town sitting at 78° north. The last port of civilization before the North Pole. When you live in Svalbard, this becomes your lifeline and your world. It has (almost) all the comforts you could possibly need. A supermarket. A hairdresser. A spa. A whisky bar. A Thai take-away. A hospital which will at least take care of your most basic emergencies, such as a broken leg.

As I spend my Saturday doing research in the library and enjoying fried rice for lunch at the local Thai restaurant, I feel for a few hours that Longyearbyen has all the semblance of a normal Norwegian town - it just happens to be a very cold dot in a seemingly endless land of icy mountains. Although a community of a mere 3000 people, I can attend art exhibitions, drink fancy cocktails, listen to interesting talks at the university, go to film festivals and and attend plays.

The truth is though, that Longyearbyen is anything but normal, and once it starts getting a hold of you (which it will), you must not be deceived into thinking that it is so. In many ways, this town can be as beautiful and brutal as its surroundings.

Many people, and to some degree myself, have a romanticized and almost fetishistic view of Svalbard and the Longyearbyen community. For me, and so many others, coming here is an adventure. An escape from civilization and our busy lives at home. However, for some people, life in Longyearbyen can become somewhat of a tragedy that one either knowingly or unknowingly walks into.

The Svalbard Treaty of 1925 recognized Norway’s full sovereignty over Svalbard. All signatory nations however, were given equal rights to establish commercial activities here, mainly related to mining, fishing and hunting, and in more recent times tourism. (The treaty restricts any military uses of the archipelago). Norwegian authorities may exercise the right to regulate activities, but this must be on conditions not enforced due to nationality. (As you can imagine, the terms of the treaty is often up for discussion, with its signatories often interpreting it in very different and conflicting ways).

Due to the unique nature of the Treaty, Svalbard is the only place in the world where a person can settle down without a visa or residence permit. As long as you have the means to support yourself and a house to live in, you may stay. With the rise of travel and tourism over the past twenty years, Longyearbyen has gone from being a mainly Norwegian town to an international melting pot where almost half the inhabitants are non-Norwegian.

Svalbard is run according to its own set of rules and regulations. Taxation is lower than on the mainland, and is stipulated to only support Svalbard and in no way directly benefit the rest of Norway. Due to this however, Norwegian social security does not extend to Svalbard, and nor are there GPs, care homes or mental health services here. As a non-Norwegian national, living and working at Svalbard for decades does in no way give you the rights that a Norwegian citizen might enjoy back on the mainland. In fact, were you to apply for a Norwegian citizenship, your years at Svalbard will not be taken into consideration. Svalbard is, in many ways, a tantalizing free for all no man’s land, while simultaneously imposing on you some severe limitations.

This week I finished reading the book “Annleislandet Svalbard: små liv i storpolitikken” by Line Nagell Ylvisåker, which I would highly recommend. Reading this book has been a real eye-opener, causing me to realize how little mainlanders know of this place. In Ylvisåker’s book, we encounter some of the foreigners who have settled in Svalbard for various reasons, and learn of their stories.

One story is that of Omid, an Kurdish asylum seeker who fled from Iran and tried to gain asylum in Norway. When his application was rejected, he was told by friends he could settle in Svalbard. He arrived in 2008, the week before passport controls were introduced. However, nobody told him that he could not leave again without the necessary papers. He became a “free prisoner caught in the arctic ice”. Omid has learned Norwegian and worked at Café Fruene, Longyearbyen’s primary establishment for over a decade. He is now in his forties, with no choice but to stay in Longyearbyen or go back to Iran. In 2019, he was finally able to procure the necessary papers to visit mainland Norway as a tourist for three months. While he says Svalbard is his home now, there will come a day when he is no longer young and healthy and able to take care of himself. He, and everyone else, knows that there is little mercy to be had from Norway when that day comes.

We also follow the story of Varisa. Her parents brought her from Thailand to Svalbard when she was only three years old. At Svalbard they could earn a good living through running a cleaning company, and offer Varisa a life of material welfare she could not expect back in her birth country. She has grown up speaking both Norwegian and Thai, but never quite managing to feel quite at home in either culture. She is now about to start university, but unlike her Norwegian friends, she cannot apply for studies on the mainland without having to procure a visa. Despite growing up on Norwegian land, she is fully aware that mainland Norway will never recognize her as one of their own. Svalbard provided her parents with the opportunity for a better life, but at the same time their decision placed Varisa in a difficult situation that she herself had no control over.

Life in Longyearbyen offers art, discussion forums, films and cosy restaurants.

Having spoken to many of the locals here, they confirm the situations described in Ylvisåker’s book. Many come here with the intention of staying for just a year or two, but end up falling in love with the place. (And trust me, there are numerous reasons to fall in love with Longyearbyen). However, they know their situation will always be precarious. One woman I spoke to has a child with special needs. There was a danger of her having to take her whole family back to her home country, because her child could not receive adapted education here. Ylvisåker herself also knows that she will one day have to leave Longyearbyen. After all, this is not an establishment for the sick and the elderly. Longyearbyen has a great turnover of people. On average, people live here for 5-6 years. This means you can never really know who will stay and who will leave. Forming tight bonds can be difficult, investing time and energy into people can feel less than fruitful. Some children find it too scary to form deep connections, because they never know if and when their friends will leave. In some ways, the term “local” in relation to Svalbard is a misnomer. There are no locals. We are all just visitors - whether it is for three months or twenty years. You cannot be born here, and you cannot be buried here. This land does not belong to any of us.

With increasing geo-political tension in the arctic areas, Norway is tightening its reins over the islands. In 2021, a new law was introduced, which took away foreign residents’ right to vote in Longyearbyen’s local elections. This means that people like me can come here and vote, whereas residents such as Omid cannot. This naturally came as a great shock to the people up here, and stirred up great rage and sadness, as it further highlighted the class divides of this beautiful, but brutal town.