Scandinavian Foundation UPDATE from the ASF PRESIDENT
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2009/2010 UPDATE FROM THE ASF PRESIDENT This fall inaugurates a year-long celebration In 2010, 46 Scandinavian Fellows were of two important milestones: the 10th awarded nearly $573,500 in funding by the anniversary of Scandinavia House: The ASF to carry out projects in fields as diverse Nordic Center in America, and the 100th as cancer research, political science, archi - anniversary of The American-Scandinavian tecture, environmental design, and compar - Foundation (ASF.) A full year of special cul - ative literature. Twenty-five American schol - tural and educational events are currently ars have been awarded more than being planned to mark the ASF Centennial $266,000 in funding, bringing the total of Charting year throughout the United States and the 2010-11 fellowships and grants to $839,500. Nordic countries, and we invite all of our American fellows carried out projects in Fellows to take part. A complete schedule of fields such as physics in Denmark, poetry in the Course the Centennial initiatives and events will be Iceland, art conservation in Norway, released in the near future on the Scandinavian Studies in Sweden and musi - Scandinavia House website – cology in Finland. of Fellows www.scandinaviahouse.org In addition, the ASF funded a visiting lec - One ofthe highlights includes the presenta - tureship at the University of Illinois at tion of Nordic Models + Common Ground: Urbana-Champaign in the field of of The Art and Design Unfolded , an exhibition Scandinavian Studies. Grants were also organized by Norsk Form in collaboration made to 48 institutions in the U.S. and with The American-Scandinavian Scandinavia, in support of public projects American- Foundation (ASF) The exhibition is curated ranging from contemporary art exhibitions to by the internationally renowned architecture dance performances. firm Snøhetta, which also designed the Scandinavian installation, in collaboration with Situ Studio. In October 2010, the ASF held its Nordic Models + Common Ground offers a Anniversary Gala Dinner Dance in the pres - visionary look at contemporary Nordic art ence of Their Royal Highnesses Crown and design, examining nascent trends and Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette- Foundation their impact on the global art and design Marit of Norway. The ASF honored Icelandic communities. All of the Nordic countries— artist, Ólafur Eliasson, and Barbro Osher, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and the Honorary Swedish Consul General in Sweden—are represented. San Francisco and president of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation. From right to left: Bernt Reitan, ASF Co-Chairman; Hon. Charles and Monika Heimbold, Inger Ginsberg, Gala Co-Chairs; T.R.H. Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon; Lise Stolt-Nielsen, Gala Co-Chair; Richard Oldenburg, ASF Co-Chairman; Edward THE Gallagher, ASF President. AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION Photos: Patrick McMullan, Inc. 58 P ARk AVENUE NEw YORk NY 10016 TEl : 212 779 3587 www.AMSCAN.ORG RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS BY ASF FELLOWS Timothy Frerichs (2000 Fellow to Sweden) presented an artists talk at Linnaeus Gardens at the Buffalo/Erie County Public Library, in conjunction with the current Grosvenor Rare Book Room Collection Gallery exhibit “Art of Botanical Illustration.” The Grosvenor Rare Book Room Collection acquired four of Frerichs’ artist books/folios based on the Linnaeus Corey Arnold, “Icy Bow” Gardens Series. The artist books are from Frerichs’ tenure in Uppsala Sweden the Andy Nestingen Corey Arnold (2005 Fellow to Norway) summer of 2000 through an ASF currently has an exhibition entitled “Skitt Fellowship and subsequently for 2002-2003 Andy Nestingen (1998 & 2000 Fellow to Fiske” at the Richard Heller Gallery. He as a Visiting Artist of the Linnaeus Gardens, Finland) , Associate Professor of Finnish in also has an upcoming exhibition at the University of Uppsala Botanical Gardens. the Department of Scandinavian Studies at Portland Biennial. the University of Washington, received a write-up in the Helsinki University Bulletin Joan Backes (1991 Fellow to Norway) for his work on Finnish director Aki had a solo exhibition at the Sleeper Gallery Kaurismäki. in Edinburgh, Scotland. Don D. Sheriff (2008 Fellow to Norway) published two articles in the Journal of Applied Physiology , based on his research on the human circulatory system while in Oslo as an ASF Fellow. Timothy Frerichs Jan Søstuen (1995 Fellow from Norway) “Linnaeus Garden Sketchbook” is currently working as Project Leader at Mimmi Fulmer (2009 Fellow to Finland) Inter IKEA Systems S.A., where he is the gave a lecture-recital on Nordic songs in franchiser for all IKEA stores worldwide. Portland at the National College Music Joan Backes “Carpets of Leaves” Society conference, and a lecture-recital on Jo Yarrington (2007 Fellow to Iceland) Finnish songs at the Nordic Heritage has published a book featuring her most Iben Falconer (2008 Fellow to Denmark) Museum in Seattle. She also has an recent large scale, site-specific installation, won the Aurora Borealis Prize in Area upcoming recital of Finnish songs at the “Ocular Visions” at the Aldrich Studies for her paper “Danish by Design: University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Performing the National in Contemporary recital of Nordic songs in a music series CT, as well as a selection of past works in Danish Architecture,” which was presented broadcast live on Wisconsin public radio. museums and sanctuaries at the 2009 SASS conference. Stephen Hilyard’s “Pete, Everest NE Ridge 1982“ Stephen Hilyard (2007 Fellow to Iceland) will have an exhibition at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography in late 2011 or early 2012. It will be entitled "Rapture of the Jo Yarrington, “Ocular Visions” Deep," which was shot in Iceland, during Iben Falconer his ASF fellowship. 2 An ASF Fellow Reports... “The Way to Sálašvággi” by Barbara Sjoholm ASF Fellow to Norway & Sweden, 2008 I've followed the life's journey of Danish artist and writer Emilie Demant Hatt along many paths in Scandinavia, from the village in Jutland where she was born in 1873, to the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen, where she studied at the turn of the century, to the shores of Torneträsk in Swedish Lapland, where she lived with a Sami family in 1907-8. Much of my research on her Sábmi 1975 by Hans Ragnar Mathisen life has been done in archives and job on the coastal steamer. A good and Norway ended, the Sami now museums, but I've also found myself friend, the author, Ragnhild Nilstun, living in Sweden had to try to man - having coffee in Danish living rooms, lives there, and had opened her age their herds to take particular where Demant Hatt's paintings hang home again to me. On previous trips routes, sometimes more difficult on the walls, and standing in front of I'd either approached the city by boat ones, so as not to conflict with the apartment buildings where she once or by plane. To arrive by bus (the farmers and their lands. During lived. Over the years, with the aid of lonely long-distance express from Demant Hatt's time there, the rein - envelope addresses and her own Rovaniemi, with only an elderly deer herds poured from the moun - writings, I've been able to map most Norwegian and his beagle for com - tains and ran overland to of her travels. pany) from the east was a change. Tromsdalen. She, along with some Thunderclouds alternated with blasts fellow travelers, elected instead to Yet even after translating her book of summer sunshine as we rolled take the steamer along the Balsfjord from 1913, With the Lapps in the along the Balsfjord through impossi - to Tromsø and from there a boat High Mountains [Med lapperne i højf - bly picturesque mountain scenery. I over a wide channel (now spanned jeldet] and writing a long biographical knew that Demant Hatt had come by the Tromsø Bridge) along the introduction, I found I still had many through those mountains, over glitter - "tourist road" (still called Turistveien) questions about her nomadic life with ing plateaus and melting ice bridges to deeper into the valley, where the the Sami. In particular, I wanted to and ancient trails carved into cliff - turf huts waited and where they met know more about her trek over the sides. In the last stages, when the up with the herds coming from the mountains from northern Sweden to reindeer had gone on ahead, she'd east. Tromsdalen, outside Tromsø, primarily been in the company of Norway. Demant Hatt spent several children and women, many of whom The morning after I arrived, I visited grueling weeks in May and June of were carrying babies on their backs Tromsdalen in the company of Hans 1908 walking on ice and through or equally precious puppies inside Ragnar Mathisen, a Sami artist, snow with a group of Karesuando their fur coats. mapmaker, and long-time activist. Sami on their annual spring migra - Mathisen, who also goes by the tion. Eventually they and their vast The Sami and their reindeer had Sami name of Elle-Hánsa and the herds of reindeer reached the tradi - passed over these mountains for artist's name of Keviselie, is well- tional pasturage of Tromsdalen or many centuries, at a time when there known for his extraordinary maps of Sálašvággi, where she spent another was no border, no Sweden or Sápmi, the Sami term for the border - month. With the object of seeing Norway. The reindeer often swam less region of northern Scandinavia some of this landscape firsthand, I across the fjords to calve on the that their ancestors have inhabited made my own way in August of 2009 islands; it was first the Sami who fol - for millennia. Now in his mid-sixties, up to Karesuando in northern lowed them and spent their own brief with an open face and a mind going Sweden and then through the moun - summers in the places where the ten directions at once, he lives in a tains to Tromsø.