Polar Night

Five artists from the collective Post uit Hessdalen retreated to the remote island Sørøya, where the polar night eliminates the distinction between day and night to examine our experience of time.

On Sørøya, a remote Norwegian island far beyond the Arctic Circle, the polar night of the winter eliminates the distinction between day and night and sudden snow-storms make it impossible to go outside. Five artists from the collective Post uit Hessdalen – a photographer, a video film-maker, a theatre-maker, a musician and a lighting designer – retreated there for several weeks to examine our experience of time and our desire for tranquillity and stillness, far from our hectic world. In the audiovisual production Polar Night, they reconstruct what it means to liberate yourself entirely from time, without daylight, clock or any familiar frame of reference, and what happens to your mind when the loss of day and night deprives you of a solid foothold, all on the basis of extracts from diaries and their own films and photos. Polar Night is also a musical voyage: the voice of the versatile soprano Claron McFadden contributes a many-layered soundtrack packed with sound experiments. In the darkness, guided by the narrator’s voice, the images of nature and shimmering soundscapes lead the audience on a trip into timelessness.

Credits

• Concept | Creation • Stijn Grupping / Ine Van Baelen / Liesbet Grupping / Frederik Meulyzer / Lucas Van Haesbroeck
• Vocals in video • Claron McFadden
• Voice-Off • Geert Van Rampelberg