program overview 08.05.2025

10-16 - Arctic photographical garden workshop

10-16 - Print, project and perform workshop

16:00 - 18:00 Videokunstarkivet seminar

18:00–18:30 Festival Vernissage

18:30 -19:30 Opening Performance: (Im)material Extraction – an expanded screening by Tinne Zenner 

19:30-21:00 Film Screening: Undergoing Transformations, handmade films by Labor Berlin curated and introduced by Sophie Watzlawick

18:30–23:00  Bar

The workshops take place at Polar Film Lab and all other events at Tromsø Kunstforening

16:00 - 18:00 Seminar: Introduction to Videokunstarkivet with Håvard Oppøyen 

This seminar is directed towards artists who want an introduction into the use of the Videokunstarkivet portal for work registration and file uploading. Videokunstarkivet is a reference archive which is dependent on artists uploading and registering information about their own work with the accompanying files. The workshop is led by Håvard Oppøyen from the National Museum’s library and archive department, who is responsible for Videokunstarkivet. Håvard has more than 30 years experience working with the preservation of film and video at the Norwegian Film Institute and the National Library, among others, where he has worked with preservation, restoration and mediation of film. 

Videokunstarkivet is a voluntary archive which offers artists the opportunity to save information and files from their artworks in a safe way, so that their works can be securely preserved. Through the workshop, we will, among others, see how information and metadata is connected to work and how to upload files. This gives an introduction to how the archive is structured and how the archive can be used by curators, art historians and researchers.

Since January 2021, Videokunstarkivet has been brought under the wing of the reference archive in the National Museum’s library and archive department. The goal is for it to be a living and up-to-date archive, an overview of video art and all of the related art forms made in Norway from the 1960’s up until the present – and into the future.

https://www.videokunstarkivet.org/

18:00–18:30  Festival Vernissage - in Tromsø Kunstforening’s exhibition: We Circle in Darkness, Consumed by Light 

Welcome to The Silver Record Festival! Join Polar Film Lab at Tromsø Kunstforening to open the festival with some refreshments, socialising and a small window to see the exhibition, before the opening performance. The exhibition We Circle in Darkness, Consumed by Light was curated by Polar Film Lab, in cooperation with Tromsø Kunstforening, and poetically explores humanity's relationship to the cycles of transformation that bind us to the natural world.

18:30 Opening performance - (Im)material Extraction: an expanded screening by Tinne Zenner

There is a complex connection between the geological processes of Kalaallit Nunaa (Greenland) — formed over unfathomable timescales and manifested in its rock formations and occurrences of minerals — and the colonial and neo-colonial dynamics between Kalaallit Nunaat and Denmark. With a case study at GEUS – Geological Surveys in Denmark and Kalaallit Nunaat – the artist zooms in on the extensive archive of topographical and geological maps showing the structure of the geology and mapping raw materials in the underground. These maps are not only scientific artifacts, but embedded within a colonial framework. Researchers at GEUS become central figures in this narrative, embodying the skills and knowledge of the institution and the state of the land. Through a transmission of their recollection of methods and results, the artist becomes a medium for this particular discourse, emphasizing but also shifting its message through performing it.

This expanded screening consists of a digital projection, an analogue 16mm loop with laser engraved geological data, sound and a live-transmitted voiceover. It is based on the material from the exhibition and research project (Im)material Extraction critically exploring the ongoing extraction of geological data from Kalaallit Nunaat within the context of Denmark’s colonial legacy.

Duration: 30 min

19:30  Film Screening: Undergoing Transformations, handmade films by Labor Berlin curated and introduced by Sophie Watzlawick 

Undergoing Transformations showcases 16mm films made by members of Labor Berlin, exploring change, metamorphosis and the image is its many facets.  Labor Berlin is a collectively organised film laboratory in Berlin, open to everyone interested in working with photochemical film with an experimental and DIY approach. 

They provide all necessary technical devices and production tools to make films on a celluloid base. Our members conduct regular workshops, film screenings and exhibitions, and act as a platform for exchange of ideas and experiences around the practice and spirit of analogue filmmaking.

Land Rebel, Christin Turner, 2024, S8 on 16mm, sound, 3 min

The Unchanging Sea. Luisa Greenfield, 2025, 16mm, sound, 9 min

H(I)J, Guillaume Cailleau, 2009, 16mm, silent, 6 min

1536 Units, Jan Rehwinkel, 2018, 16mm, sound, 2min

EMDR-Talk About Trees, Katrin Eissing, 2024, 16mm, sound, 7 min

Vintage Wisdom from the Ether, Bernd Lützeler, 2023, 16mm, sound, 8 min

Sans Lune, Sophie Watzlawick, 2017, 16mm, sound, 8min

Phenomena (air) , Carolina Romillo, 2024, 16mm, sound, 3 min

Ich bin 33, Jan Peters, 16mm, sound, 3 min

Résistance, Laurence Favre, 2017, 16mm, sound, 11 min

iiiii, Deborah S. Phillips, 2021, 16mm, sound, 3 min

Safety note: one film contains flicker

Duration: 75 min