Phase II

The collective spent two intensive weeks in the Faroe Islands in July 2025.

The residency focused on engagement with local ecologies and communities through fieldwork, research, and artistic experimentation. The program, curated by local hosts Jón Sonni Jensen and Dan Helgi í Gong, combined site visits, collaborative sessions, and meetings with Faroese artists, curators, and institutions. The group also participated in the G! Festival with a presentation of the project and a performative participatory water ceremony.

The program provided valuable insights into the nature, history, traditions, art, and marine environments of the islands, while strengthening the connections within the collective. Daily morning sessions encouraged reflection, conversation, and shared care, deepening the sense of cohesion among the participants.

The group was based at the Faroese Folk High School in Tórshavn (Føroya Fólkaháskúli), which served as both accommodation and a shared workplace, offering space for community building, skill sharing, communal meals, and collaborative exercises. Activities included a Deep Listening session led by Dan Helgi í Gong, an Anthotype workshop with Jón Sonni Jensen, and a multisensory walk with Mari Keski-Korsu and Eija Mäkivuoti, where participants listened to underwater sounds through hydrophones. These shared moments helped the group connect more closely with one another and with the surrounding environment, fostering a strong sense of collaboration and mutual learning.

A major part of the residency consisted of fieldwork in diverse natural sites across the islands. The group visited locations such as fishermen village Bøur, Gásadalur waterfall, the gorge in Gjógv, took a boat trip to Suðuroy island, and drove through a newly built subsea tunnel to the island of Sandoy, and many more other places, exploring varied landscapes, bodies of water, and weather conditions. The Faroese weather—famously unpredictable and often described by locals as “the land of maybe”—shaped the rhythm of each day and reminded the group of nature’s fluid and shifting presence.

Members of the collective engaged with local environments in their own ways: through walking, mapping, journaling, drawing, sketching, collecting water samples and other natural materials, sound recording, video, digital and analogue photography, as well as alternative photographic processes such as cyanotypes, anthotypes, and lumen prints.

Visits to Faroese museums and institutions offered further context. At the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands (Listasavn Føroya), curator Anne Maria Dam Ziska provided an in-depth introduction to Faroese art history and contemporary practices. At the National Museum (Tjóðsavnið), the group learned about local history and folk life. The visit to the Faroe Marine Research Institute included an introduction to marine biodiversity and research in the North Atlantic.

Meeting local artists was an integral part of the program. Encounters with residents of the Finsen Studios and other artists such as Hansina Iversen and Guðrið Poulsen led to meaningful exchanges around material, process, and place. The art hike with Guðrið Poulsen and Jón Sonni Jensen in Húsahagi near Tórshavn encouraged reflections on the scale of human impact and landscape transformation.

The residency in the Faroe Islands was a significant phase in the long-term With the River project, reinforcing the collective’s commitment to artistic collaboration, environmental awareness, and interconnection through water. This phase of the project was generously funded by Tjaldur, Nordic Culture Fund, and Kone Foundation.

In the future, the collective will meet in Helsinki in May 2026 for a similar residency. After that, members will return to their countries of residence and continue working both individually and collectively with different bodies of water—on site and online—for the following four months. The culmination of this work will take shape as an art publication and exhibition in autumn 2026. The collective’s artistic work during 2026 is generously funded by the Kone Foundation.

Text by Alexandra Stroganova
Photos by With the River Collective

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