ECHO-SWING | talk series

Gatherings with/by/for Granavollen’s women-run volunteer art network

Over the course of 22 gatherings in 2021, a group of six women volunteers, a handful of collaborators, and an artist will gather biweekly to reflect on the core issues of the history and influence of women-run volunteer art networks in rural Norway. We initiate informal discussions on topics such as the social value of volunteering, solidarity tactics, outreach strategies, collective care, and more. The project includes participatory democratic elements in involving local volunteers, and aims to develop a mediation approach that will facilitate the co-production of relaxing and “subversive” public (‘furniture’) installations in Granavollen by the year 2022. We want to draw attention to the quietly exclusionary nature of modern public space toward our bodies, in particular the bodies of those who volunteer for the sake of our cooperative communities.

read more on Echo-Swing prelude

Anthropologist and Randsfjordmuseet’s public outreach Maja L. Musum presenting the Echo-Swing project – Language, Norwegian

Echo-Swing #1

February 10, 2021

In anticipation of our first group conversation, we listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session recorded from her hometown Buenos Aires. Ana is a movement and awareness instructor and has developed a tailored combination of physical and mental exercises for us—getting us into a well-balanced mood and unlocking the potential of our collective presencing.

Listen to talk #1, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.

Read more about the project and the first gathering here


Echo-Swing #2

February 24, 2021

Listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session #2:

Listen to talk #2, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.

Read more about the second gathering here


Echo-Swing #3

March 9, 2021

Listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session #3:

Listen to talk #3, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.

Read more about the third gathering here


Echo-walk in Granavollen

April 15, 2021

Hei alle sammen!

God påske!

Du vet hvordan ting har endret seg på grunn av Covid, og regelverket tillater ikke at vi møtes innendørs ennå. Men utendørs er nå et hyggelig og varmt sted å være.

Hva synes du om å møte 15. april kl 10.30 for alle å gå en times tur i Granavollen? Kanskje vi kan “kartlegge territoriet” og tenke sammen hvor benkene kan installeres i fremtiden?

Hva synes du om det?

Store klemmer,
Rodrigo

Kari Ballangrud walk
Anne Marie Hvattum walk
Maja L. Musum + Mari Svenbalrud
Kari Aftret
The “shoe hill”
the walk

Echo-Swing #4

April 29, 2021

Photo: Possibly the earliest record of women’s self-organized volunteer group for culture and art in Granavollen, Innlandet. *Courtesy of the Randsfjordmuseet’s archive.

“(…) Women’s liberation and equal rights are not terms we have normally associated with the Norwegian Society of Rural Women. During the 1970s, the second wave feminist movement had its origin in the city and was to a great extent an urban phenomenon. It never gained any strong foothold in rural areas (Poiner 1996). There may be many reasons why the women’s movement held little appeal for rural women, even though its issues were both relevant and important to them. One such reason may be the general view that the movement was critical of the traditional nuclear family and hostile towards men. At the same time it was perceived as critical toward many of those values that have traditionally been held in high regard in rural communities. According to Poiner (1996), the desire for harmonious social relationships is strong in many rural societies, and therefore potential gender conflicts are suppressed. The women’s movement has been perceived as a threat rather than a liberating factor.

(…)

The gendered separation of functions where women concentrated on social and cultural issues and the well-being of people in rural areas, and men took care of farm politics and economic issues, continued after the re-organization into two independent associations. Thus, the NSRW had a different start from most feminist organizations. Its objective was to organize women to work for rural welfare.

*Centre for Rural Research, Norwegian University for Science and Technology, Trondhelm, Norway.
Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 lJF, UK
0 1997 European Society for Rural Sociology.
Sociofogia Rurufir Volume 37, No. 3, 1997
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0038-019
read full article

Listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session #4:

Listen to talk #4, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.

Read more about the fourth gathering here


Portraits by French photographer Yann Bougaran
from left to right: Kari Ballangrud, Maja L. Musum, Anne Marie Hvattum and Kari Aftret


Echo-Swing #5
w. EDIT

May 19, 2021

Som samarbeidspartner i prosjektet Echo-swing arbeider edit. med konseptutvikling og utforming av skulpturene. Gjennom dialog med Rodrigo og basert på tema fra innledende workshops i fase 1 vil edit. fra og med fase 2 bidra med idéverksteder og idémyldring på konsept og design sammen med de frivillige deltakerene på Granavollen. Basert på dette vil vi komme med forslag og skisser som er en sammensetning og bearbeiding av de temaer og ideer som blir diskutert på workshops i de ulike fasene av arbeidet. Dette dokumentet inneholder dokumentasjon og tilhørende skisser fra arbeidet med fase 2 og innledende idé og konseptworkshop holdt på Granavollen kommunehus i mai.
– EDIT

audio excerpt from the workshop with EDIT | the original audio is two hours long

Echo-Swing at Kulturytring Drammen

June 23, 2021

[6:32:45′]


Echo-Swing #6

June 30, 2021

Listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session #6:

Listen to talk #6, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.

Read more about the sixth gathering here


Echo-Swing #7

July 29, 2021

Listen to Ana Laura Lloveras‘s relaxing audio session #7:

Listen to talk #7, to improve sound output headphones are encouraged. The session was partly recorded and this is an unedited version. This conversation was held both in English and Norwegian.


Echo-swing | Prelude is made possible with the kind support from KORO – Kunst i offentlige rom / Public Art Norway and Innlandet fylkeskommune.

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