After a long yearning – or should I say months of impatient wait? – for leaving Stockholm, on January 7th at 7 am, I eventually embarked on this new chapter in my professional (and obviously, personal) life: roughly one year spread across four different curatorial residencies.
One would imagine that moving to the neighbouring country shouldn’t take that long.. but my first destination for 2013 is Norway, where transport is notoriously somehow slower than it should be, normally due to adverse weather conditions.
Oslo airport: I’m short of breath as my flight was late (and my luggage obviously the last one emerging onto the belt) when I manage to check-in for my connection from Oslo to Førde. The lovely lady at the SAS/Widerøe desk looks at me with a nonchalant attitude: “Madame, your flight has been cancelled, I’m sorry, it appears there’s a technical problem”. Weirdly enough, I think how my horoscope had announced severe travel disruptions for today… I ask about my fate, and she says I’m de-routed to Florø, and then there will be some bus taking me to Førde, but she has no idea of what time I should get there. I look puzzled, and I keep nagging her until she gives me an answer, having quizzed all her colleagues and made a couple of phonecalls. As I will be late, I warn the residency coordinator who is diligently coming to pick me up and greet me. I notice I’m late for my flight… Of course my hand luggage has to be checked and is stuck in a queue. Odd, that you have to go through the whole security scan again for a connection flight, and even more so, that only then your belongings need to be disastrously unpacked and re-scanned and re-packed. I run like crazy and just about make it to the gate. I eventually make it to Florø, jump on the bus which magically takes almost 1 hours rather than the 50 minutes announced. It’s pouring down rain, and the driver decides to drop off people closer to where they live, a very kind gesture which leaves me the only soul all the way to the airport. It’s nice to meet Adeline there, tho I’m sorry I had her waiting for ages in the car.
It’s an interesting journey, we exchange some bits of conversation here and there, and I am surprised to remember the sequence of villages and fjords and waterfalls as it had been three and half years since I had been there, a random detour through buses and local ferries of what should have been a visit to the Bøyabreen glacier on the way to Bergen. Driving through the little municipality of Fjaler and all its small villages, I stop for groceries and finally get my keys to a warm, cosy resting place. It’s almost half past five, and needless to say, I’m totally exhausted by the trip!
Welcome in!
[one|year|of|curatorial|residencies] 