#relating forests - Myths, Humans and Nature II

 

During our online seminar photographer Yannick Cormier and professor in Sámi literature Harald Gaski will offer inspiring insights into how myths work, how people relate to nature and discuss the significance of mask rituals in Europe. The aim of this seminar is to develop a deeper understanding of the role of myths and rituals in our relationship with nature.

We want to explore how these elements can be used to raise awareness of sustainable development and stimulate a shift in our thinking.  The online event is aimed at artists, cultural practitioners, environmental organisations and anyone interested in sustainability, art and nature.

Program:
09:00 – 09:15 | Introduction to the project relating forests
09:15 – 10:00 | Lecture: ‘ When we still could speak with the animals’ –  Sámi values, views and understanding of the human-nature relation with Harald Gaski
10:00 – 10:20 | Q&A – open to public
10:20 – 10:30 | Break
10:30 – 11:15 | Lecture: Mask Traditions in European Paganism with Yannick Cormier
11:15 – 11:40 | Q&A
11:40 – 12:00 | Conclusion

Date and time:

8. april 2025 9:00 - 12:00

REGISTER LINK
(you will be forwarded directly to the website of our partner NoBa / vitenparken. The event is free of charge.)

If you interested to join, you can go to the link above on the site of our partner NoBa or write us on mail@theatre-fragile.de

About the lectures:

‘ When we still could speak with the animals’ –  Sámi values, views and understanding of the human-nature relation

In his talk, professor Harald Gaski will take a closer look at the traditional Sámi relationship to the surrounding nature, and how this is expressed in myths, stories and beliefs. The Sámi used to communicate with their fellow inhabitants; the birds and the animals and treated the forest as a respectful partner with whom one wanted to be on good terms with.

Mask Traditions in European Paganism

In this lecture, photographer Yannick Cormier delves into how European mask rituals powerfully embody the ancient connection between humans and the natural world, highlighting the omnipresence of animal and plant forms where figures covered in fur, leaves, or straw symbolize humanity’s primordial relationship with the forest. Drawing from his documentary work in Spain and Portugal for his “Tierra Magica” series, Cormier explores how these characters serve as essential mediators between worlds, embodying nature’s regenerative power while helping communities confront ecological anxieties.

About the lecturer

Harald Gaski
Harald Gaski is from Tana in Finnmark and is a professor of Sami literature at Sami University College. He has been central to the development of Sami literature as an academic discipline since the mid-1980s. He is also a fiction writer and has translated Sami literature into Norwegian and English. In his research, Gaski has been interested in indigenous aesthetics, Sami myths and traditional values, as well as the multi-artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää.

Yannick Cormier
After producing a photographic series on the ancestral traditions that are still celebrated to the rhythm of trances, ceremonies and sacrifices in Tamil Nadu, in southern India, which can be found in the collection Dravidian Catharsis, Yannick Cormier is continuing his research into contemporary rites in France and Europe. From 2017 to 2020, he will produce a new series in the Iberian Peninsula, Espiritus de Invierno, documenting the carnival rites practised in this region.
The photographer shows this form of resistance to the cultural identity of so-called traditional societies or smaller communities that have not yet been completely anaesthetised by the modern consumerist world. It is an attempt to reveal the mythological attitudes of these groups.
His photography brings together the spiritual and the material, fiction and reality, tradition and modernity. His photographs are living images that he draws from travel, social rites, religious ceremonies, cultural fantasies, dreams and, more generally, from all the games, sacred or mundane, that disguise identity and appearance.

www.yannickcormier.com

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