Daniel Peltz was invited to Svolvær in September, 2007 by Nordnorsk Kunstnersenter under the auspices of the Intercountry Lecturer Program. Below is a description of two artistic projects he undertook in Svolvær.

Digital Quilt

The first is the digital quilt that I made with the women of the Svolvaer husflidslag. This was based on a project I'd conducted with a large group of students in Arizona in 2004. Beginning from high resolution scans of their skin, the women generated quilt squares to create a digital quilt in the american craft tradition of friendship quilts. Each square was then composited, or digitally merged, with one other to produce two layers for the quilt. The finished quilt was projected onto a black quilt backing that was mounted on the gallery wall. A computer program detected when someone crossed in front of the quilt and triggered a transition from the first layer of squares to the second, the one with the merged squares.

The women who participated in the workshop were very excited by the process. They took to it right away, remarking that it was very similar to pattern making in their craft work. Before leaving, I provided each of the women with a print out of the squares they produced and the address of my studio in the U.S. The next step in the project is that the women who participated will incorporate these designs into their craft work in some way. We will exhibit the quilt they made and the crafts it spawns at the next exhibition of the Souvenir Project, scheduled for May 2008 in Bergen, Norway.

 

Speech given on "Movement Day"

Sept. 10, 2007
Svolvaer

Moving day
today is not a day
it is yesterday and it is tomorrow
moving day is a global movement
a chance for us to move
it is a quiet, slow dance
not a romantic celebration but an embodied way of knowing
knowing the only constant in a world of variables,
constant change

Dear people of Svolvaer, those who are here for just a day and those who have lived here for many years, tourism is on the rise. It is Svolvaer’s growth industry. As a way of seeing the world, one might argue it is a growth way of seeing. The tourist comes from afar, seeking change in grand jet-propelled gestures, hurling their body through time and space, measuring their journey in miles and kilometers. But where is the measure for their internal movements? Who issues the frequent flyer miles of the spirit? Today, we will measure that invisible expanse. As you go out to move this town, one piece at a time, remember that it is movement itself that you are measuring, not the distance between the starting point and its so called end. It is the admirable origin of tourism and travel that you are tapping into, the desire for knowledge through movement.

Seen through the tourist’s cloudy, romantic lens, you, armed with your little wooden token, compass and map, may seem laughable or insignificant. When doubt creeps in, sit with it, patiently, for as long as it takes for it to move on. Try to just keep moving, see if you can sense the link between your tiny movements and those of others, all around the city, moving exactly the same distance in exactly the same direction…and, if your time-sense allows, see if you can sense the impact of this as it grows into a global dance, the mighty force of this small movement rippling through the planet, humans taking up the arms of a lonely, rotating world and following its lead for just a moment. So when you receive that tourists’ gaze, look back, assured, with the slow unmoved response of the mountains that surround you, of the creeping glacial ancestors that formed them.

Things to Remember on Moving Day

Keep moving, this is a movement, it is, alongside all the ideas I have presented, not an idea, it is an action and not a casual one at that. Seen from a sufficient height, it has no more or less significance than the raising of a great temple or the passage of an ant along a moss trail. An average glacier moves only .08 centimeters a day and yet no one scoughs at their global importance. You are all part of a great movement and all I ask is that you engage this action with everything you are. No need to start from an idea, spend the next few hours wandering if nothing occurs to you. Talk to people on your way, see if there is something you can move together.