Part 1 of 8 in my travel series from the summer of 2022.
The Plan
After two years of COVID cancellation of our study abroad in Greece, things are finally back on this summer. Hurray! I’m very excited to be returning to Paros with my colleague Albert William and 11 students. But first, I’m visiting my daughter, Amalia, in Trondheim, Norway, where she has been in graduate school for the last year and a half (after doing the first semester remotely from Indy).
Amalia left the states for Norway to get her MFA at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), attending its art school called KIT (Kunst Akademiet i Trondheim). I haven’t seen her for nearly a year. I’ll be with her for a week and will get to see at least part of her graduate exhibit. One opening, for her installation at the Trondheim Science Center, has already happened, but it’s a multifaceted piece that has a few more components I’ll be able to catch, including her dance/performance at the contemporary art museum, the Kunsthall Trondheim. I hope to make a short film about her work while I’m there.
Update: Well as a matter of fact I did and here it is:
Flying to Norway (May 10th)
After days of finishing up my grading and packing, it was finally time to fly out. Years ago, I was unable to go to Amalia’s college graduation because I had to be in Paros for study abroad. I promised her then if she went on to graduate school, I would not miss her next graduation. I hardly imagined at the time she would choose to go to Norway, but hey, a promise is a promise, so I have absolutely no choice but to fly to Norway. So now it’s Indy to Detroit, Detroit to Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Trondheim. Luckily, the two-hour flight delay out of Indy did not make me miss my connection in Detroit.
For whatever reason, sleep seemed impossible on the flights except for the final 20 minutes of the last flight when I could not keep my eyes open or my head balanced on my hands to save my life. Ugh.
Arriving in Trondheim (May 11th)
After Amalia picked me up that afternoon, I got to see her graduate student apartment (which is quite nice) and her art installation at the Vitensenteret (The Science Center of Trondheim); the Kunsthall Trondheim, the museum where she will be performing on Saturday; and the KUK Artspace where the reception will be held.
Her piece, called Signaling, is an installation of sculptures that use mycelium and sound/music generated by mushrooms, along with a dance performance. At the science center, the sculptures hang from pink chains in a room lit with blue lights. Spray bottles of water are there for visitors to spray the mushrooms to help keep them alive. (When we were visiting, school children were spraying each other with them.)
I also visited Amalia’s studio space at KIT, where she is growing several mushrooms.
Trondheim was sunny and in the 50s (the sun is a bit of a rarity). I hate to use the word, but I don’t really know how else to describe Trondheim: it is very quaint. The houses with their vertical wood siding in either bright colors, black, or white make for quite the picturesque sight. The hills, the water, the very old buildings combined with the well-designed new buildings create a visually compelling city.
I love the very different sense of space found in so many European cities. It’s much more intimate than in the US. I’m sure this is somewhat due to the closeness needed for protection when the cities were originally established hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. But even today, a more intimate sense of scale and organization is maintained with newer buildings. I saw villages of 8-10-story apartment complexes all clustered closely together, not in a grid as they would be in the US, but organically arranged with walking paths between them. The contemporary urban design feels like an extension of the earlier medieval design, often avoiding a grid layout.
This urban design is so inviting and feels more communal and community-enhancing than what we typically find in the US. All this gives a sense to the observer that in Trondheim, and perhaps in Norwegian society at large, there is more of an emphasis on community and, by extension, happiness. In the case of Trondheim, it is also very visually complex and compelling because it is built around a fjord and across several hills.
The Sauna and Innerdalen (May 12th)
The days are looooong in Norway and we took full advantage of the daylight. One highlight of the day was going to get a sauna. At noon we made our way through cold wind and rain to the sauna club that is out on a pier. Amalia goes there a couple of times a week as a guest of her sauna shaman. I call him the sauna shaman, not Amalia, because during the sauna (where about a dozen naked people are sitting in a giant two-tiered space with a big window facing the fjord) he plays music, wind chimes, and a rain stick and whips the hot air at everyone with a towel. The process involves sitting in the sauna for about 10 minutes as the shaman does his thing and then jumping in the freezing fjord—and repeating that four times. It is a bit intense.
The other big highlight of the day was setting off at 6:00 on a 2½-hour drive to Innerdalen. Innerdalen is a mountain valley where there is a cabin we can stay in. After the scenic drive, we parked and walked the three miles toward the cabin. It’s a pretty steep walk over a hill and back down on the other side. As we crested the hill, the sun broke through the clouds and gave us a beautiful view of mountains bathed in lavender light.
The Norwegian Cabin System
The cabin is part of a 500-cabin system around the country where people can stay for $25. For a nominal membership fee, you’re given a key that fits all the cabins. The cabins, or at least this one, had everything we needed: electricity, a kitchen, a fully stocked pantry, and most importantly, a wood-burning stove with a big stack of firewood. (It all works on the honor system and you pay by the Norwegian version of Venmo.) I got the fire going right away as Amalia made a delicious pasta dinner.
The entire time I’m simply amazed that this all exists and that people take care of it. It’s hard to imagine that working in the US.
Documenting the Installation (Friday, May 13th)
We cleaned up and hiked out in the morning and made our way back to Trondheim. In the afternoon, I documented Amalia’s installation at the science center and then we rested before going out for a ramen dinner. The ramen place, Edoramen, is located in one of the apartment villages I mentioned earlier, in an area of town called Lilleby, and is run by a Michelin chef named Heidi Bjerkan. (As part of Amalia’s performance/reception at the science center on May 21st, Heidi will be there making mushroom ramen for the occasion.) I have to say the ramen was pretty extraordinary—a real umami bomb!
Amalia’s Performance (Saturday, May 14th)
Amalia’s big day has arrived. Her performance at the Kunsthall Trondheim is at 1:00. Part of the 90-minute performance involves sound/music being generated live by mycelium that is on two rolling rack structures that are moving throughout the dance. However, we awoke in the morning to find that the batteries needed to make that sound did not charge, despite being plugged in all night. That made for some stress and scrambling. Fortunately, the sound designer for the piece had a solution—some quick chargers. So the batteries got fully charged during the rehearsal that started at 10:30, and everything was ready to go at 1:00.
It all went very well. As the videographer, I was incorporated into the piece by wearing a hazmat suit. Amalia’s dance, in which she dances with four undergraduates she somehow convinced to go along with her idea, was truly beautiful, and the many comments she received the rest of the day made me think a lot of other people felt the same way.
Celebration
The remainder of the day was spent at the big reception where everyone was recognized—essentially their rather casual commencement for the 20 graduating MFA students. That night we went to a new sushi place in town, Maki, which exceeded our expectations. And then we had dessert at the restaurant where Amalia works.
The whole dinner experience was a bit of a trip. It’s an enormous Italian restaurant in the heart of the city that was established 47 years ago and is now run by the founder’s son. The place is beautiful and it was very busy. Two of Amalia’s classmates were working and spent a lot of time talking and laughing with us, and a few of Amalia’s other co-workers dropped by to talk. It seemed like one big happy place to work. There was also surprise chocolate ice cream for Amalia with a flaming two-foot-tall torch on it (like they love to do in Europe). It was all very warm and inviting. We were there for like 90 minutes or two hours. And when we left, everyone who was seated at all the tables around us when we arrived were still there. Nobody was going anywhere.
I love the slow-paced European meals that go on all night. Nobody is in a hurry to go anywhere. I savored every minute sitting there with Amalia celebrating her success. What a great end to a wonderful day.
The Other Exhibition (Sunday, May 15th)
We drove two hours to a small town where there was another exhibit of the graduating class. It turned into an all-day affair that left us pretty exhausted. I’m glad I went because I got to see another piece of Amalia’s in this show.
Later that evening, after we got back to Trondheim and had a rest, we took a hike to the top of a mountain that overlooks the city. In one direction is Trondheim, in the other are mountains and a large fjord. It’s an incredible view. A very cold incredible view.
Nidaros Cathedral and Departure (Monday, May 16th)
Before leaving for the airport on my last day in Norway, I was able to shoot an awesome interview of Amalia in her studio and visit the incredible cathedral in town. It’s called the Nidaros Cathedral. It’s the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world. It was started in 1070 and took almost 250 years to complete. It’s enormous and has not one, but two organs, both of which you can see in these photos.
So that was my trip to Norway to finally visit my daughter. I’m very proud of all that she has been doing and creating. She is a beautiful and talented young woman ready to make her mark. Below are two short videos of Amalia’s work.