I grew up both on a small farm outside of Tromsø, and later on the island of Tromsø. I grew up in between cultures, I guess one could say, my mother being Sámi from Olmmáivággi and my father from Bergen in the south of Norway. My mother was my first Sámi language teacher, just after she learned the language from a Sámi language course. Music was a big part of my upbringing, or as part of life maybe. I did listen to Sámi music, but mostly Sámi children's songs, those made to learn the language and the connection between the language and the world. Most of all it was Norwegian and other Western music, joik was not part of my upbringing. The joik had disappeared from the area that my mother is from a long time ago, from all the coastal Sámi areas in Tromsø, due to the church and assimilation of the area, so learning to connect to our distinctly Sámi vocal tradition/storytelling/way of connection is something that I didn't do before adulthood. I guess I must have been a sensitive child, always talking to my surroundings in a way that I think many adults forget, or unlearn at some point. To learn and understand the connection between our joiks, our lands, and ourselves is one of the greater gifts of my life.

Yes, I agree with you. And still, things move so slowly, the eagerness and longing for what is lost and taken away makes me want to be a fluent Sámi speaker yesterday. But about the joiks! Joik is our traditional vocal-sounding expression, being storytelling, a sounding portrait, and a way of remembering and connecting to the land with all its living being. We say that we don’t joik about something, but rather joiking something, the joik being in a more direct relationship to what is joiked. As soon as a joik is made, it belongs to the one joiked. It is a very embodied sound practice, if I can call it that. Let’s say I joik the half island connected to the mainland outside Tromsø where I’m from. It is a very embodied experience to tune in to that sounding portrait of it, how the land has been experienced and moved in before, and then me letting those tones out from my mouth and body. Compared to a more Western way of thinking about sound and music, I think joik sometimes is a more embodied sound tradition. The source of sound is important, it matters and it moves in between everyone taking that joik into their mouth.

The area in which I have my Sámi heritage has been under hard assimilation and colonization from early on. It was easier to get to the Sámi areas by the coast than the ones lying inland. Also, people lived less nomadic lives by the coast. No one really knows when the joik disappeared from these areas, but it is not really a living tradition anymore. Still, some think that the joik did not completely disappear, but rather moved into the Læstadian hymns and psalms, coloring the way of phrasing and how the voice is used when they sing the psalms in these areas. I know joik is a big step for many to learn, and it has been for me too. Am I allowed to learn and do this without growing up with it? I have spent many years getting closer, and the first thing one of my teachers told me was to not perform the joik before it was part of my everyday life. because that is how it has been used. As a language, as a way of saying “I see you” to humans and more-than-humans.

There are not many joiks from our area, mostly joiks from the reindeer-herders that moved in these areas from summer to winter. Still, there are a few, and new ones are being made.
In a project that I have with my friend Viktor Bomstad, we wanted to get to know the psalm-tradition more, since it’s the most vibrant musical tradition from our area. Could we find traces of the joik? As an example, we have looked into the way of singing, how, as the people sing hymns with everything from 10 to 50 verses, there is a delay occurring in the room, the front singers being a bit ahead of the ones in the back. There is a slowness to the phrasing, and often several different pitches. Still, everyone participates.

As part of getting closer to the joik, I was also interested in how the philosophy of the joik can be a framework to think about sound, working with sound, sound art, and music. Or if it even makes sense to do so. I guess I think about my own work as portals into other spaces, spaces that could be this mixture of physical, spiritual, and mental. Often as a way of expressing a feeling, a state of mind, or the connections between things, without saying it with words. I guess that could also relate to the joik, often used instead of words, as a way of expressing an instant feeling of love, grief, joy, or anger, and as a way of communicating this. And then some things should not be put into words, some things are meant to stay knowledgeable to only some, readable to only some. I have been occupied with holes, openings, crevasses, and portals for the last couple of years. So much has gone lost, also the knowledge to read and understand symbols, rites, and other cultural elements of the Sámi culture. Not to mention the oppression of our history, language, and landscape. To me, these holes also become a place to fantasize about how it was or could have been, and imagine the Sámi future.

I guess in my exploration of this meeting between a Sámi way and the contemporary way, I learned about the ethics of sound. To be more careful with what you put into this world, to be aware that not every sound, space, or listening situation is for me, or for me in this moment. To try to enter into a more equal exchange with the surroundings, understanding that I’m listened back to as I listen. This is really a deep-learning situation. When I have been working with archives in different ways it’s also a question of how a sound produced a long time ago is understood today. What do we know about how that sound was recorded, or why it was originally made? These are things that are actively discussed in Sápmi today, as the joiking archive slowly opens to the public ear.