In honour of eider ducks and their guardians, the exhibition ‘Ahoo Ahoo’ opens at UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre in Vega, Norway on April 27th. Invited by the founding artist and curator of the Nordic art project The Conference of the Birds, we are excited to exhibit five portraits created during our residency at Selvær in the Træna archipelago, made in collaboration with eiderduck carers, down cleaners, bird experts and local islanders.
Ahoo Ahoo is the enchanting sound of male eider ducks crooning like a mighty choir between the islands along the Helgeland coast in spring. For centuries, the islanders have lived alongside the eider ducks, guarding them while they nest and incubate their eggs. In return for their help, they have been given precious eiderdown, which used to be an important by-product in the islands.
At a time when more than 70 per cent of eiders and other seabirds have disappeared, and we are losing wilderness and species at an unprecedented rate, the exhibition focuses on the deep-rooted kinship between humans and eider ducks. Weaving together the threads between birds, people and nature as a whole, it conveys more-than-human ways of thinking, sensing and navigating to find more sensitive and sustainable ways of living in and with nature.
In addition to the five Eyes as Big as Plates portraits, Eva Bakkeslett is exhibiting the eider duster ‘Æ ea’, as well as screening her poetic documentary film Ahoo ahoo. Also on the team is biologist Thomas Holm Carlsen, who has researched eider ducks at Selvær for 20 years. He introduced the artists to the birds and to eider guardians Eivind Hansen and Jann Sandøy on Selvær and Sandøy and to down cleaner Gerd Jakobsen, the only people on the Træna Islands who still guard the eiders and clean down.
The exhibition is up until end of August.
