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ONS Artist in Residence

Those of you who attended our Norwegian Skill Share, Dugnad at the beginning of the month may have met our new artist in residence, Kirsten Bertelsen, who has joined the Our Norwegian Story team.

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Kirsten Bertelsen (b. 1966, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen. She graduated from MA Psychology at University of Copenhagen, Denmark (1991-1998) and BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College, UAL, London (2012- 2015).

She setup Gesamtkunstwerk Aps (2008-2015), an independent cultural agency specialized in strategic development of arts institutions, and their relationship with local communities. She has worked in association with the Danish and Scandinavian Arts Councils and is currently working on a 10 year/long term art trail in the region of Sör Tröndelag in Norway.

Over the last 3 years, she has developed a project in Norway, working to link young London based artists with the region Sør Trøndelag north of Trondheim. Every summer four artists travel to the island of Stokkøya to work for 4 weeks. The residency is part of a long term plan to ignite the area, instilling a sense of belonging amongst the residents on the island, which will hopefully encourage younger generations to come back and settle when they have graduated with their degrees from universities in the bigger cities.

Exhibitions include Strangelove Moving Image Festival, London (2015), Metaphoinica Film Festival, London (2015), The Kings Cross Curious Festival, University of the Arts, London (2015), One to One Charting the Personal Terrain, The Rag Factory, London (2014) and In Between States, Mile End Art Pavilion, London (2013).

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Norwegian Skill Share – Rope Making and Knot Tying with Cluaran. Image: Ronnie Galloway

As an artist, she has a strong interest in the role art can take outside the bigger cities and how artistic methods can contribute to an investigation of values about place and about belonging. She takes pleasure in research both from reading, and studying archival material, from talking to experts, and from listening to the stories of local people. Kirsten is from Scandinavia, and has been working intensively in Norway making her a great asset as Our Norwegian’s Story artist in residence to help bring this part of Dumfries’ story to life. So if you have any questions or stories please do get in touch. She will be living in Dumfries for 2 months during Autumn, and she will be very happy to meet you.

Kirsten Bertelsen – [email protected] – 07583548048

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Musings

Introducing Euan Macrory

This years Nithraid sees us welcome a new team of young interns to help kick-start our now annual sailing race up river and into the centre of Dumfries. First up is Euan Macrory, a musician from the town and joining the event production and marketing team. We asked Euan to tell us a little more about himself and his music:

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I am a musician that is driven by giving opportunities to other performers and artists. I hope to contribute my part to the Dumfries music community by encouraging new performers and hopefully allow people to try music as a hobby even if they never have, purely so people can discover a new passion. My main passion at the moment is combining genres and changing music. This has involved me taking genres that are not always perceived as exciting, like traditional folk and combining it styles like funk, flamenco and jazz. In the future I hope I can encourage a rise in the interest of the Dumfries music scene and try to change music.

I was drawn to Nithraid because I wanted to try being part of the organisation of an event so I could participate in events from a new perspective. I have been a performer at events but I am looking forward to experiencing events under different circumstances and gaining new skills in fields that present unique challenges and rewards.

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Nithraid 2014 – Procession and Nithraid Band

I think Dumfries is a town with a lot of potential. I think it has a really nice local community that you struggle to find in other areas. I believe that with our close community values we can make a modern town with more reasons for young people to stay here and build careers.

The most exciting part of the Stove process for me is the involvement it permits. The stove opens up a wide variety of opportunities for people to get involved in, including different types of workshops and events for activities that people would not consider if the Stove was not offering these unique opportunities.

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Five books I think everyone should read are Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck, The Symposium by Plato, How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky, If On a Winters Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

There are so many songs that I couldn’t live without but if I had to name a few it would be Santeria by Sublime, Emily by the Bill Evans Trio and just every song by a spoken word poet and rapper George Watsky.

I never expected to enjoy volunteering in a charity shop as much as I did. Honestly when I started I thought it would be a fairly quiet standard shop job but I had so much fun and made so many great memories from it.

My passion is music, it means so much to me and it always has. I couldn’t see my life without it.

Find out more about Euan and his music online via his youtube channel here, and his instagram account here.

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