Installation, Ålingen kjøpesenter, Ål / Leveld, Norway, 2015
Leveld, a village in Norway. I started my work by knocking on doors and asking questions. Ten people invited me to come in:
Ragnhild, Ola, Mette, Björg, Anne-Björg, Birgit, Kari, Odd, Per, Anne-Sigrid.
They allowed me to share their thoughts and memories with them.
Most of them grew up on farms and spent the bigger part of their lives in Leveld. They have a lot of things in common: All of them told me that they have had a good childhood: ski tours and hiking in the mountains, playing in the nature, good friends and good teachers. All of them have had hard working parents. From early age the children had to help a lot with the daily work. Some of them have experienced real poverty: no money to buy food in the store, no toys. And school was only three days a week!
Stories of the past and the meaning of living here now, being parents and grandparents. An enormous hoard of life experience and hope for the future!
This installation contains fragments of all that: Portraits of my amazing interview partners - and a shelf with a collection of their personal memories, photos, names and texts. Thus, they are saved from oblivion. A fragile and ephemeral documentation of ten individual lives. And part of the collective memory of the village.