MARGRETHE PETTERSEN

Margrethe Pettersen’s work is site-specific. Her questions focus on ecosystems and their complexity and fragility. She is particularly interested in the relationship between humans and nature, not in their separation, a theme she repeatedly explores in her works. Her own identity, her Sami roots, and the oral tradition of knowledge production are methods that she incorporates into her artistic practice. The creation of her works is often a longer collective process, involving different senses—seeing, hearing, feeling, moving—and in tandem with exploration of her own story and the stories of a specific place. Water is a central element in this process. After the long-term project Remembering with Rivers, an artistic engagement with the ten rivers of Oslo, she traces the course of the Chemnitz river in Láibmat II.

The Chemnitz, or the Kamenica, once meandered freely, rocky and rich in species, before it was regulated, hidden, polluted, and harnessed to drive industry. A river full of history and stories, a fragile interwoven mesh of relationships that has been appropriated by humans for humans. For the artist, the river is in constant motion and carries with it ancient wisdom and tales. It is an important part of a greater context and has its own local ecosystem. Like a blood vessel, it nourishes the all living organisms in the surrounding area.

Margrethe Pettersen, Maia Birkeland, Dana Tomečková, and Christina Disington carry out a healing, cleansing ritual with the Láibmat II performance. Four bodies form a circle and float downstream, depending on the flow of the water. The assemblage of bodies floats for some distance from one bridge to another. Time as an organic element is an important aspect in this work. In Sami culture, time is regarded as circular, as something that comes instead of going. Time does not run away, but opens up possibilities. Time also plays a central role in the mcreation of artistic work—it is an essential part of it. Through letters and dialogues, Pettersen developed the work Láibmat II in a collective process with artistic colleagues Birkeland, Tomečková, Disington, and the director of the Chemnitz Environmental Centre, Melanie Hartwig. Collective memory and the close exchange with local networks form the core of the artist’s work, as it is only by concerted remembering that stories are interwoven and physical experiences shared.

How we can learn from Indigenous communities is a key issue, as is how to deal with the climate crisis. The artist ties together the critique of consumerism and production in the Western world with the close relationship Indigenous communities have to, and their knowledge of, nature. We are nature. Initiating structural changes, a different concept of time,that is not  money but contemplative immersion, and responsibility for one’s own actions are just as much the focus of her work as vulnerability. This is always based on the fundamental closeness and equality between humans and the environment.

Margrethe Pettersen says: “I want to make the water and the river more accessible to the people who live there and bring back the river as an entity. I hope to open up thoughts about how important water is for all living organisms, as well as the power it holds, the stories and the wisdom.

- Anja Richter

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