LISTENING-WITH, LISTENING-THROUGH
heritage, culture, and the politics of a museum
participatory sound intervention
the Polar Museum, Tromsø (NO)
2024
How can listening interventions help face and de-colonise present structures, norms and cultures of a place?
With its proud explorer history, The Polar Museum in Tromsø attracts more tourists than any other museum in the Arctic North of Norway. But it also carries a history of colonisation, deportation and violence by the Swedish and Norwegian states against the indigenous Samı people and their land.
Inspired by the Samı artist Britta Marakatta-Labba, and her tapestry ‘Historıa’ which is owned by the local Arctic University i Tromsø, participants were invited to partake in a series of listening interventions exploring forgotten principles and rituals, facilitated by Jenny Sunesson, inside and outside of the Polar Museum.
By listening-with-and through the museum's artefacts through an interplay with found objects also belonging to the site the heritage of the museum was re-explored.
This intervention was a collaboration and hosted within the interdisciplinary research project Arctic Auditories - Hydrospheres in the High North.
