Artists:
Michael Tsegaye
Flis Holland
Sissel Solbjørg Bjugn
Island Eye Island Ear

The exhibition Courses of Action (Handlingsforløp) consists of photographs, video works and texts by the artists Michael Tsegaye and Flis Holland and the author Sissel Solbjørg Bjugn, plus archive material from Island Eye Island Ear – a collective art project with a history dating back more than 50 years. The participants are from different countries, generations and disciplinary backgrounds.

Produced in collaboration between Lofoten International Art Festival – LIAF and the artist-run institution NŌUA, the exhibition stands as a satellite to the main festival exhibition that opens in Svolvær on September 20.

This year's edition of Lofoten International Art Festival – LIAF, has Lofoten's unique and relatively unknown history of telegraphy as its starting point, or to be precise, the establishment of the Lofoten Line (Lofotlinjen) and the innovative technological experiments that led to a race to establish the world's first wireless spark-gap telegraph transmitter. The story goes that one man rowed all the way from Røst to Sørvågen, a stretch of 60 kilometres across extremely dangerous ocean, to bring the news that the signal from Sørvågen had passed over the Lofoten mountains, crossed the swirling maelstrom and been picked up in Røst by the over 50-metre-tall wooden mast that had been erected at the outer-most tip of the island. Although Lofoten was defeated by the Italians and had to content itself with second place, the experiment led to Sørvågen Radio being, for a time, a communication hub that would increase the levels of safety and efficiency for the Lofoten's fishing industry. At the same time, it proved to put the weather-bitten fishing villages in contact with a much larger world extending beyond the archipelago.

The exhibition title, Courses of Action, refers to the fact that the works, which consist of previously unpublished manuscripts and unrealised projects, incorporate ideas that relate to courses of action, projections, visions and processes that stretch over long periods of time.

Lofoten International Art Festival – LIAF, is the longest-running art biennial in Scandinavia. It presents works by local and international artists in a site-aware context. This year's festival, the 18th edition, is curated by Kjersti Solbakken. North Norwegian Art Centre has organised the festival since 2009. LIAF has its own Artistic Advisory Board.

A special thank you goes to Tor Eystein Øveraas for his generous loan of works and archival material.

The exhibition has received support from Nordic Culture Point, the Norwegian-Finnish Cultural Foundation and Bodø 2024 European Capital of Culture.

LIAF and North Norwegian Art Centre are funded by Arts Council Norway, Vågen Municipality, and the County Municipalities of Finnmark, Nordland, and Troms.

Island Eye Island Ear, Lofoten 2024 will be performed on the south-western part of Svinøya in Svolvær during the opening weekend of LIAF 2024.

Island Eye Island Ear was originally conceived by David Tudor (1926-1996) in 1974 for Knavelskär, Stockholm together with Fujiko Nakaya (b. 1933), Jaqueline Matisse (1931-2021) and Margaretha Åsberg (b. 1939) and producers Billy Klüver (1927-2004) and Julie Martin (b. 1938) of Experiments in Art and Technology, New Jersey.

Island Eye Island Ear, Lofoten 2024:

Artists
Sound: SIAF LAB.; Kei Komachiya, Norimichi Hirakawa, You Nakai and
Jacob Kirkegaard
Choreography for Mirrors: Margaretha Åsberg
Kite Tails: Robert Monnier and Gill Eatherly, Jackie Matisse Estate

Ultrasonic Directional Speakers
SIAF LAB.;. Kei Komachiya, Katsuya Ishida, Daisuke Funato, Norimichi Hirakawa, guest curator Hiroko Kimura-Myokam, and documentation by Hirofumi Nakamoto

Curators
Marianne Hultman, director, North Norwegian Art Centre
Kjersti Solbakken, Lofoten International Art Festival 2024

Producer
Berte Tungodden Ynnesdal, North Norwegian Art Centre

Advisory Board
Julie Martin, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)
Phil Edelstein, Composers Inside Electronics

Island Eye Island Ear; Lofoten 2024 has received generous support from Nordic Culture Point, EU-Japan Fest, Bodø 2024, Sasakawa Foundation and the Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo.