Opening speech at the exhibition “Mind the Map!”

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Dear friends of the Arctic,

“Mind the map!” is a brilliant title.

First: I am very fond of maps! I use them in my speeches, books and articles, and in my office in Oslo hangs a large map of the High North – showing the size of the area and the retreating ice edge – and I invite all guests to study it carefully.

Second: One of the things you learn when you are young and go abroad for the first time is that the gaps between train and platform can be quite wide at tube and train stations in London, New York and elsewhere. You get used to hearing “Mind the gap!” But my point is this: The other thing you learn is that you can board a train and quickly cross the city from east to west, from north to south. The tube connects: different parts of a big capital, different cultures, different landscapes, different buildings, shops, workplaces and different people. - Different worlds.

When you “mind the gap”, and cross the gaps, bridge the gaps, you are taking a chance, embarking on a journey. You may encounter a new world, a new map.

Culture is, in its own way, also a means of communication, like transport. Excuse the rather rough comparison. The arts connect north and south, east and west. The arts make us travel, across borders.

Dear friends,

It has become a good tradition for Sør-Varanger municipality and Pikene på Broen to invite people from near and far to come together. In the depth of winter, and in the middle of the night! To share ideas and thoughts about all the opportunities that exist for cross-border cooperation. - Not only across the borders between our countries, but also across the borders in our minds. – Which are perhaps the most important barriers.

Pikene på Broen have, in their playful and sometimes provocative way, given us an artistic view on the challenges we are facing today. It is the prerogative of artists to challenge us, by trying to keep one step (well, mind the gap!) ahead of developments, ahead of our times.

The slogan “Mind the Map!” for this year’s festival and the exhibition, calls on us to look beyond all the progress our region has seen during the past year.

From where we are standing, we can see a row of border posts that were set up to mark the border between Norway and Russia. Right now – in the centre of Kirkenes – they symbolise the significance of the border as a meeting place between two nations – two peoples – with a shared culture, shared history (in a longer perspective), shared tradition.

Only a short while ago the border posts played quite a different role, marking a sharp division between peoples, an immense gap, a barrier.

“Mind the Map!” is not only a reminder that the map is changing – just think about the fact that Norway and Russia agreed on a boundary (delimitation line) at sea last year! – but just as much a reminder that we ourselves have to change with the map. We have to change the map in our mind, our mental map. We must have the courage to seize what the new situation offers, for people-to-people cooperation, here in the border area, and elsewhere in Norway and the Barents region.

In his installation “Borderline”, the Norwegian artist Morten Traavik evokes the physical border and, as we will see later, the spectre of border surveillance. At the same time he encourages us to cross borders – to enter new territory – both literally and figuratively. The Russian artist Olga Kisseleva has created a digital animation that dwells on the tensions and challenges in the Arctic. And the Italian artist Stefano Cagol uses various materials and methods to show how the past influences the future – how our response to new opportunities reflects our past experience.

This exhibition, and indeed the whole programme for the 2011 Barents Spektakel, underscores that Kirkenes in February is a meeting place for everyone who is concerned about cross-cultural contact. Barents Spektakel has grown from a local cultural event at the border to a cultural festival that attracts international attention. When this exhibition opens in Oslo tomorrow, border posts will be set up from the Royal Palace to the Storting. - A manifestation of the cultural creativity unleashed by the realities of the North.   

Dear friends, it is a great pleasure for me to declare the exhibition “Mind the Map!” open.