Video HD 16 min, 2019-2021. Norwegian w/English subtitles.
In “Sagn om jord” (Legends of Earth) the point of view is from a distant future. The sci-fi inspired narrative is set in the region of Hardanger (Norway) where the landscape has vanished and all that remains is the local dialect.
An excavation uncovers films revealing images from today’s Hardanger: the research station NIBIO Ullensvang where they research mainly fruit production, a salmon farming facility and a slate quarry. These are the first images of the lost landscape to appear.
A woman attempts to make the visual fragments of an estranged world comprehensible and locate them in an imaginary landscape.
The film explores how the management of natural resources shapes our surroundings and the connections to landscape, language, history and image production.
The soundtrack is from the NRK sci-fi tv-series “Blindpassasjeren” from 1978.
The footage in the video is shot in Hardanger in 2019 and 2020, combined with collages of postcards from the region (ca. 1890 to 2010).