In an era of globalisation, we are choosing to develop an alternative engagement with local heritage in rural areas, through the translocal process of Experimental Heritage – a transdisciplinary practice including archaeology, art and heritage. This practice evolves from local heritage and local culture, where unique stories, practices, monuments and traditions are approached together with local community knowledge, at an intersection of art and archaeology. We are engaged in the processes of unfolding both the hidden and the more obvious dimensions of local heritage. By going beyond institutional norms and practices, we let the combined arts and archaeology practice emerge from within and through local communities and their landscapes in a translocal process. We are offering an engagement that is rural centered, rather than adopting a central institutionalised urban model. This transdiciplinary, trans-local practice can be applied in an international context but has no strivings to be the singular dominant paradigm. We focus on sharing practices to expand transdisciplinary knowledge.
Karum-Creevagh is an ongoing project developing the experimental heritage process. This artistic and archaeological work includes heritage interpretation, community engagement, interaction and co-creation. It builds on collaborations between archaeologists, visual artists, performance artists, musicians, poets and dancers as well as heritage and cultural workers and the community.
All involved have a connection with and knowledge relating to the areas in County Clare, western Ireland and on the island of Öland, south-eastern Sweden, crucial for this practice’s aims: to create new perspectives and practices relating to locally specific heritage.
To see the film “Moving the Ship” on its own, then see the LnuPlay. https://play.lnu.se/media/t/0_cpxu3dbk
Moving the Ship
The stone ship Noaks Ark at the Iron Age cemetery by Karums alvar, Öland, Sweden, is heading for the Irish west coast. Archaeologists and artists from two island realms meet to explore together the meaning of cultural heritage today.
Bodil Petersson: Concept, project management. Maria Kerin: Choreography. Hans Gurstad-Nilsson: Editor, music and sound design. Danny Burke: Music, timber flute, An phéist ag an gcarn. Jan Hagelin: Drone photo at Karum, Öland, Sweden. Jackie Askew: Photo at Lahinch estuary, Ireland. Michael Walsh: Additional photo at Lahinch estuary, Ireland. Ann Elkjär Gustafsson: Bass flute. Thomas Wiegert: Percussion.
In collaboration with Experimental Heritage Öland.
Abstract for the Arts in Society Conference presentation in 2021
Mapping from the Edges – Voicing Inner and Outer Landscapes
Abstract for the conference Arts in Society in 2021
In our research we use mapping as a method to give a voice to both inner landscapes and geographical outfields and edges: physical/embodied, landscape related, global and local, independent and institutional, collective and personal. Outfields and edges are interpreted in a wide sense and as both inner and outer spaces. The effort has grown from a year-long collaboration between Irish and Swedish artists and archaeologists in a collaboration between academia and independent artists. We experiment together with the concept of heritage and its implications in the present, with the aim to voice and visualise this research effort through the use of photos, film and sound. Our points of departure are from the more peripheral parts of the European continent and from both within and outside the institutional context, as our research emanates from Irish and Swedish academic and independent contexts and moves beyond traditional borders. From our experiences we approach what might be seen as core experiences relating to the local in the global. We voice life contained in different kinds of landscapes at both micro and macro levels and we listen to its changing pulse.
