Mother, Sun & Ocean, VII and V years

The work consists of two letters and a pile of birch wood that is stacked in three parts that relate to the heights of the artist and her children (with their arms extended upwards) at the time the work is installed. For this iteration, another mother of two children, Wei Li, was invited to participate. Wei Li participated in the installation of the work by stacking the wood piles herself while also engaging in a written correspondence with the artist. She brought her two daughters with her to the gallery while she did this work. Wei Li is an active member of 'Saturday at Two O’clock', an international meeting place for women in Tromsø, which takes place every Saturday in the Skapeverkstedet of Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum. The group was initiated after the Fagereng tragedy in 2019 to build networks, share thoughts and ideas, and forge friendships between women from different countries and cultures.

Carola Grahn is a visual artist from Jåhkkåmåkke on the Swedish side of Sápmi. She is educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and lives and works in Lund. She has a Southern Sámi background and uses her Sámi culture as a driving force in her practice. Grahn works conceptually and site-specifically, using different media and materials. In her installations, she draws connections between humans and nature and directs critical attention to society’s power structures, colonialism and the destruction of nature. 

In addition to the sculpture, and in reference to the site-specific context, children visiting the museum were invited to draw “underwater” on the walls of the exhibition room.