The discovery of Norway's mountains

Poster: Courtesy to the National Museum, Oslo

I went to a fascinating exhibition at the National Museum (and its Nasjonalgalleriet) in Oslo on Sunday 24. Feb. The exhibition illuminates how a group of artists and scientists travelled together in the 1820s and inspired each other when "discovering" Norwegian mountain areas.

Interesting pictures by e.g. Finnish-Swedish officer Carpelan and Danish painter Flintoe. See link below.
Notice also a highly detailed and aesthetic map of South-Norway by Carpelan. On the map I found the farm where my mother was born, Haakanes at the Tinnsjøen. Interesting to look into the Cosmoramas as well!
http://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/index.php/content/view/full/5178

At the museum, I also met Bjørkvold, former music professor and enthusiast, and I asked him about the Moseid embroidery, if any solution for exhibiting this had emerged (see other publication on this blog). No news so far on this matter, was the response. Then we both wondered whether the new art museum to be built on Tullinløkka perhaps may give this piece of art a final home? The Four seasons art embroidery by Moseid really deserves to be seen!

Super Tuesday - on Aljazeera

Interestingly, we're watching the Super Tuesday American election of delegates (for nominating candidates for the next US presidency) on ... guess, Aljazeera! They seem to have a very good coverage with a range of clever correspondents alerted for reporting from the "important states." This show is going to continue from now (around midnight in Norway) and for the next 7 hours...

I wonder what this phenomenon means, in terms of our media habits and the channel's ability to attract a wider audience. Whether paradoxical or not, we find it interesting in our family to note that Aljazeera offers such a good coverage and close following of the US elections. Sadly, we have to go to bed now, work waits tomorrow of a less political-entertaining kind...

The Kautokeino Rebellion

Photo source: The Norwegian Film Institute

8. november 1852 is a dark day for Scandinavian Sami population. According to a new movie, the Kautokeino rebellion emerges from a long conflict between a ruthless merchant and the local Sami families in Kautokeino in northern Norway.

The real-life conflict included ingredients such as abuse of alcohol, unjust debts and forced slaughtering of reindeers as payment of the debts, as well as tensions in diverse Christian practices, and last but not least, unexpected, highly unfair prisoning of Sami spokespersons.

The conflict escalates when the sheriff's men is chasing a young mother Elen Skum, wife of one of the imprisoned Sami brothers. To avoid another prisoning of a family member, the clan resists the slauthering of her reindeers.

The Rebellion Tragedy

To survive as a clan herding their reindeers, the group of Sami families was so provoked that they afterwards went together to Kautokeino and entered into what became a bloody battle against the local merchant, the priest, and some of their allies such as the new sheriff. Most of these were killed and the merchant's shop was burnt down (see brief on the background below).

However, this tragedy also continued: Several of the Sami leaders were later assassinated or sentenced to prison for months or years through a highly unfair trial by the authorities in the North of Norway. See a preliminary description of the real-life story here with some literature sources: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kautokeinooppr%C3%B8ret

Taboo...

According to the film director Nils Gaup, himself a descendent from one of the Sami rebels, this Kautokeino story has been a taboo locally and it is also a dark chapter of Norwegian history though a few books exist.

Anyway, in 2008 this is now again possible to see, talk about and learn from.

The movie

The new movie by Nils Gaup seems to stay close to what actually happened (perhaps even underplayed? rather than exaggerated). In brief, it documents the emergence of the conflict between the scrupelless merchant in Kautokeino and his staff's daily tempting of the local Sami men towards drinking thus moving them into a serious debt situation. We also learn how the merchant allies with a new local priest and try to enroll other authorities to expand his business and avoid competition to accumulate wealth for his family as quickly as possible. The drinking at the merchant's store leads to family hardships in the Sami community when the wifes and grandmas have to look after the herd on their own. Here the film also offers insight into the Sami's traditional way of living literally in the nature.

Storytelling

In the movie, Elen Skum goes to the merchant's shop to fetch her drinking husband, which brings us directly into the core conflict and some key actors.

Somewhat later, a turning point in the movie is when she, and her husband, meets Læstadius, a Swedish priest moving hearts by preaching for the good and against drinking. Afterwards, through a series of escalating events Elen and Sami family members and friends finally stand up for justice against the local priest and the merchant, as well as judges. See more on this movie here http://www.nfi.no/english/norwegianfilms/show.html?id=699

Note that the authorities are not only biased. For example, the local sheriff at the time (soon however replaced) is played with sympathy and nuance, which is trustworthy.

Overall, the escalating tragic story reminds us how suppression of the original population can unfold as well as how the law and justice can be put aside when two worlds collide and also business greed, faith or own reputation is at stake. GO AND SEE THIS MOVIE NOW. Released January 2008.

Say it, show it, web it Polytechnic society, Oslo

MONDAY POLYTECHNIC AFTERNOON 28 January, 17.00-19.00.
Klubben in Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7 - a discussion club for Norway's Polytechnic Society - was packed with people, invited by the ICT group and the Culture and Media group of this Society.
On the agenda: a panel of new media highly experienced persons discussing trends and challenges for multimedia editorial offices when facing "one medium traditions."
Polytechnic Society's ICT group leader Espen Andersen (an assoc prof at BI Norwegian School of Management) first introduced the afternoon's topic - Si;D, Vis;D, Web;D - by pinpointing that we will "all be working in several media" and adding to the audience of journalists and other media interested people; "I think you will all become net journalists."
Espen then outlined some key differences of writing for net-based media and paper-based newspapers and journals, e.g. in terms of a daily writing in more frequent and modular ways etc.
He then delineated three trends in this transition towards more netbased practices and I'll try to summarize according to my own quick notes:
1. Putting together different ways, information becomes lego pieces.
2. Starting to link into the text, also f.ex. links to competitors if interesting for the reader (even to another local newspaper).
3. Using alternative interfaces, for example, the perception of a main entrance into a site will be challenged because most people now tend to use search engines thus entering into the site through a multitude of ways.
See more thoughts from Espen Andersen here: http://www.espen.com/
Later, when editing this... I see his introduction as well as the whole panel discussion are video-recorded and thus available via his blog. So I just mention who participated.
The panelists were the following:
Torry Pedersen, responsible editor, VG nett
Petter Merok, Microsoft's local technology director.
Eirik Newth, author and independent blogger
Eirik Solheim, media developer and project manager at NRK.
I just like to mention that Solheim organized his talk around three points; Quality, Social interaction ("Alt dette sosiale"), and "NRK before and now." Eirik pinpointed that "for the first time in history, people are sitting at home producing with better quality than we can in NRK." Furthermore, Eirik Solheim and also Erik Newth referred to the great potentiality of opening up NRK's archives.
See more on Eirik's activities and experiences from http://eirikso.com/
--------------------
Own reflection: By the way, I just bought a collection of DVD's "100 år med historie (hundred years with history) 1900-1999," a documentary edited by Gary Tarpinian based on archives material from both BBC and Pathe. I've explored one of the DVD's, 1940-1949, as a way to learn key events in history together with my 18 year old son. We both agreed it was useful ...but we also need to remember the material from the 2nd WW is coloured by one side, as my son said.)
Anyway, I really hope NRK will explore this potentiality of its rich archives without not necessarily merely "selling DVDs" but indeed consider opening up its archives at least to some extent for free.
Why? There seems to be a need for differentiating and recreating what a publicly organized and funded national broadcasting media house can and should offer. This may be a good opportunity to contributing to this nation's culture and learning processes.