Installation

Nord Rute is the first instalment in The Compass Series, a four-part cycle of unconventional ambisonic (surround-sound) narratives. Inspired by the literary works, drawings, and sonic imagination of renowned Sámi multi-artist Nils Aslak Valkeapää, the series draws from his cycle of poems that explore Indigenous cultures, their traditions, and their spiritual and practical relationships with the natural world.

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Nord Rute is a sonic interpretation of Valkeapää’s Poem No. 272, created by sound artist and recordist Ross Adams (Trawl Hz), Ed Handley - one half of UK electronic music pioneers Plaid (Warp Records), and Sámi poet Synnøve Persen, with joiking and drumming contributions by Ingor Antte Ailu Gaup. Poem No. 272 centres on a reindeer herd in motion and places Sámi life, language, and the acoustic textures of the Arctic tundra at its core.

 

Woven into the work is a contemporary account of the annual Sámi reindeer migration - a 350-kilometre journey across the Arctic tundra to the spring grazing grounds of northern Norway. Adams travelled alongside a group of herders, capturing ambisonic field recordings that form the foundation of this immersive sonic landscape.

 

The result is a work that bridges poetry, tradition, and sound: a moving portrait of a people, a migration, and a world shaped by nature’s rhythm.