We Are the North - A Decolonizing Ritual

Human trafficking across continents, families torn apart in the name of civilization, suppression of language and culture, racial biological research. The collective ancestral wound in the Nordic region is painful - and it is the starting point for VI ER NORDEN.

Between earth, plants and glass, the past and present of Nordic colonialism emerge in an encounter between the personal, the historical and the emotional. The work unfolds in an installation by Sámi artist Stina Aletta Aikio, where performers and audience together move, shape, dissolve and recreate the earth, while words, body and landscape merge in a gradual transformation.

The work was produced in 2022/23 with support from, among others, the Danish Arts Foundation, the Norwegian Arts Council, the Nordic Culture Fund, NAPA and the Augustinus Foundation. It premiered at Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia (National Theatre) in Nuuk in May 2023 and has since toured the Nordic region. The performance at Nordatlantens Brygge is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council, the Foundation for Sound and Image, Fritt Ord and the Nordic Culture Contact Mobility Funding Programme.

VI ER NORDEN is a nomadic, conceptual work that is reborn in new form at each location in collaboration with a local guest artist. In the 2026 version, Norwegian/Gambian dramatist, author and performer Camara Joof, Sámi/Finnish visual artist Stina Aletta Aikio, Greenlandic dancer and actor Elisabeth Heilmann Blind, Faroese composer Trondur Bogason and Danish choreographer and dancer Ingrid Tranum Velásquez participate. Lighting design is by Mikkel Magnus Olsen.