Elina Waage Mikalsen

Áhcagastá – Tales of the Ember, 2022

Áhcagastá – Tales of the Ember explores the multi-layered role of fire by reinterpreting a traditional Sámi weaving method. For Elina Waage Mikalsen, fire is a source of comfort in cold weather, a reminder of the violent colonisation and erasure of Sámi cultural heritage, and for communicating danger across the Norwegian coast. Featuring stories from Mikalsen’s family, the work weaves together fire and darkness to speak of transmutation, connecting the past with the present and the cosmic with the personal. The Sámi are the descendants of nomadic peoples who inhabited the adjacent areas of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

BIO
Elina Waage Mikalsen (b. 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist and musician. She works with performance, textiles, installation, text and sound. Her artistic work is often based on her Norwegian and Sámi background. The meeting between the Norwegians and the Sámi in her own family is representative of the power relations that haunt our society as a whole; with this intimate view of society, Milkasen explores themes related to identity and exclusion in her works. She often combines her voice with field recordings, electronics and self-built instruments to create sound spaces that exist somewhere between reality and fantasy. It is the emotional and narrative properties of sound that interest her, and how sound can function as a time machine that causes time to collapse and sets both future and past in motion. Mikalsen completed her MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo in 2021. In 2015, Mikalsen was named Young Artist of the Year at the international indigenous festival Riddu Riđđu, and has since participated in a number of group exhibitions and performance programs. She currently lives and works in Oslo.

RESOURCES

• Educational Resource | Artist Folio

INFORMATION

• Áhcagastá – Tales of the Ember. 2022. Yarn, steel, mica, sound and book. Dimensions variable. Commissioned in collaboration with Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF). Supported by Bodø2024 – European Capital of Culture with a local Artist in Residency grant.