9.12.2025
It was the darkest time of the year as the Rievdan –project arrived to Kárášjohka for the third time. So, what better way to celebrate this than with light art! We had worked with different light art-themed ideas all throughout the autumn and we were excited to put the plans in motion.
Our final idea for December’s Kárášjohka workshop was to let the pupils work with light painting, where long exposure photography and light is combined to create quite literal light paintings. Our theme was the 8 seasons of Lapland, the age-old idea in Sápmi cultures, that alongside the usual four seasons, there are also 4 other ones that are also tied into the local lifestyle. We hoped to get the pupils to consider the possible changes in these seasons and the effect these changes may have on them.
As we set up our workshop in Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš, we started the day with the pupils with 8 seasons themed Alias game. After the game we split the class into four groups and raffled two seasons for each group to work with. After talking about the seasons and different activities related to them, the pupils considered how they could approach these themes with light paining and wrote down some ideas. We then taught them the basic concepts of photography, such as ISO, aperture and shutter speed, equipped the pupils with proper cameras and let them loose.
Though their initial reactions to our ideas and discussions weren’t exactly thrilled, it was great to see how well the pupils took the actual assignment. They experimented with different lights, colors and styles, started essentially directing each other and evolved their working with each photo until they got the results they wanted. Also, it seemed, they had quite a lot of fun while at it. The whole group went down to the basement of Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš, where one could hear the echoes of excitement and laughter brought on by the process. Groups were divided into different parts of the basement, and the intense darkness that surrounded the students made quite an exciting atmosphere. However, the lights and camera work quickly made all their nerves go away, suddenly, the dark basement wasn’t so scary.
When the groups were happy with the photos, they edited them with iPads into small videos that we then combined into a one, longer video. The groups were also tasked to name their art works and write a short “press release” about their work. This took a bit more effort from them, but when words came, they were – to our delight- quite strong, powerful, and insightful. The press releases were thought through and dove into the themes of climate change and other environmental issues in their home city.
At the end of our day in Kárášjohka we did a pop-up screening of the video at an abandoned gas station in the city centre. The students read their press releases aloud, and we projected the final film of their work on the wall of the old gas station. The event had an almost activist feel to it, because of the subject matter. It felt very powerful,when the students were reading their quite personal texts and we took our space in the middle of the city. The event was a successful little celebration of their work and while the day itself was short, it was nice to see how the pupils managed to create a complete and whole artistic process from the idea to the result in just one afternoon.