commissioned radio productions
Elina Waage Mikalsen – Juolggit julggiid vuostá – the line has two sides
TX: Saturday, 19th Feb, 6pm – 6.30pm + Sunday, 20th Feb, 12pm – 12.30pm
Elina Waage Mikalsen combines her voice raw, as instrument, and with words with electronics, her self-built instruments and field recordings to bring to life ghosts, or in the sámi context “underworld people”. Exploring the long history of erasure of sámi voices and stories in Norway, this new work brings a conversation with the dead to reveal the intentional gaps in historical narratives and restores connections to the past, whilst creating opportunities for the future
A co-commission between Borealis Festival and Radiophrenia
Elina Waage Mikalsen is a multidisciplinary artist and musician from Tromsø in Northern Norway, currently living in Oslo. She works with performance, textiles, installation and text, in connection to sound and sound practice. Elina has her background in art and film, and was awared the title Young Artist of the Year at the international indigenous festival Riddu Riđđu in 2015. Since then she has participated in a number of group exhibitions and performance programmes. Elina’s artistic work is strongly intertwined with her Norwegian and Sami affiliations. The meeting point between these two cultures in her own family paints a picture of the power relations that haunt the society as a whole. In her work, this intimate view of society becomes a platform to explore themes related to identity and exclusion. In her sound work she often combines her voice with field recordings, electronics and self-built instruments to create sound spaces that sit somewhere between reality and fantasy. It is the emotional and narrative properties of sound that interests her, and how it can function as a time machine which causes time to collapse and sets both future and past in motion.