The Place of Shade [The Place of Shade (Draft) - 2024-01-11 21:37] by Dibble and Bjarne

At first, the plan was simple – to be home by Christmas. To begin to view the very concept of home as built upon nostalgia. Imagining home is a pastime of any immigrant. If, as Breton suggests, ‘The imaginary is that which tends to become real,’ what were our imaginings bringing to life? The Place of Shade is an artistic research inquiry into contemporary Norwegian culture in South Africa. Norwegians began operating within the British colonial framework around 1840—the same period as the migration to America. Lutheran missions, whaling, farming, business and family characterise this almost 200-year Afri-Norge diasporic heritage. It has been almost entirely overlooked in visual culture, until now. Following the depletion of Whales in the Nordic seas, Norwegian immigrants almost single-handedly established the whaling operations in Durban from 1908 onwards. Their legacy remains an integral component of the city and the province's socio-cultural fabric to this day. With this in mind, we sought out the ghosts of Larsen, Hermansen, Egeland and more from New Pier to Kwambonambi; we found them. The project is an act of psychogeography, insofar as it hinges upon ‘the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.’ The images and text that make up the exposition are the culmination of this process. The attempt by a disparate group of individuals, at once insiders and outsiders, to understand how legacy takes shape and how it has reshaped our understanding of Home. By living with and meeting Norwegian decedents on their farms and homesteads this project was possible. We thank all who were so kind and eager to connect again with their roots.

Click the pins to trace the historical odyssey etched by the Norwegians who ventured through the tapestry of The Place of Shade.

The Place of Shade is an artistic research inquiry into contemporary Norwegian culture in South Africa. (See abstract for overview).

The project began with a preliminary research phase. During which, we collected data and resources. We sought to comprehend the scope of our subject and where our research might lead. This exposition, represents a subsequent of that process. In this exposition, we, on one hand, reflect on our research, methodology and fieldwork from a fictional standpoint—a kind of meta-methodological reflection—and, on the other hand, we address our Afri-Norge subject matter head-on.

To achieve this, we narrate Ray Franz and Anthony Morton’s part in the artistic research journey through the fictionalised perspectives of two PhD students at The University of Bergen—Vincent Dibble (RSA) and Bjarne Karlsen (NOR)—who leave their shared office, to undertake an expedition which parallels ours, travelling to KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. This fictionalised journey is set in the penumbra of the seismic socio-political events of 1999 - The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The South African Arms Deal, Case no. 4138/98, and the looming global spectre of Y2K. Dibble, an occidental eschatologist, and accidental apocalypse-hunter. Bjarne, a philosophical cosmology post-doc and photography enthusiast.

This exposition is imagined as the pair's pin board, suspended upon the expanse of their office wall upon return. Behind them, it hangs, a silent curator of fever dreams, as they weave theses into existence, their gaze drawn through the window onto the sprawling canvas of Bergen's cityscape.

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