Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend the first ever level 4 workshop from Morten Krogvold. There was just this one tiny little issue – in the middle of the workshop we were hit by a national Covid-19 lockdown in Norway. In cooperation with the local government and local health authorities we were allowed to complete the workshop with some restrictions. Mostly because we had some health profesionals among the group. You know who you are, thank you. Among else we were no longer allowed to visit the locals, and we had to practise strict social distancing when we were out and about.

“What happened next will amaze you” as they say on click-bait websites. Everyone started thinking in a different way. I noticed a few things:

• We became more focused.
• We became more quiet and thoughtful.
• We did better work.
• And we kept a little more distance between each other.

Team Morten handled the situation very well. Normally on a Krogvold workshop we try to stay disconnected from the world, but we could not do that to the same extent, or rather in the same way as usual, this time. A few participants had to leave early – due to family or medical reasons, but the ones that stayed really connected … over art, … music, … film, …  books, … discussions … and doing photography. I think we all felt that we both were very privileged and lucky. Lucky, to be there and to be able to focus on something we were really interested in, together with like-minded people. Privileged, to be allowed to continue at a time when everything else was being shut down all over Norway. 

We were an isolated little group during the “plague”.

Morten Krogvold early on told us to notice something, art would flourish during the pandemic. People would need something “more” and that the interest for music, dance, literature and the visual arts would explode during the pandemic. So far he seems to have been right. On the internet people are creating and sharing amazing amounts of creative ideas and projects. Both amateurs and professionals are creating new stuff. It will be interesting to see what will be revealed when the society opens up again. We have already seen a lot of new stuff, but big works take time.

I will only say thank you to everyone that made this workshop amazing.

• To Morten Krogvold and his team: Thomas Karlstrøm and Tore Lund-Blindheim.
• To Jan Jønson for a fantastic performance and for telling amazing stories.
• To Vågå Hotel for making us feel welcome and keeping us safe and fed during those strange days of the workshop.
• To all the friends, the other participants, that made this a great community and experience.
• To everyone else not mentioned that participated or helped to create this experience an early spring week (or late winter week) in the middle of Norways valleys and mountains.

We are now looking forward to the next part of this workshop, a talk by Tove Nilsen, she could not make it to Vågå due to the pandemic.

Finally, I shot som photos myself as well. This time we had to create our own “theme” for our photographs. I chose to be inspired by a poem by Hans Børli:

PÅ STIEN EN MORGEN
Det knaser sprøtt i kongler under støvlene mine,
jeg går her halvt fraværende
med hodet fullt av blå lang-tanker
mens alt er hverdag
og ting av fortrolighet rundt meg.
Ei barnål i ene sokken min
vekker meg med et iltert stikk.
– Dette er livet ditt! Her går du
midt i det,
– så lev, for pokker,
plukk de gylne solsekundene
opp i den slitte gamle neverskrukka,
hjertet ditt.
Jeg stanser,
står fortumlet på stien
og snyter meg i en flik av morgenrøden.
– Hans Børli