Elina Waage Mikaelsen

Elina Waage Mikalsen (b.1992) is a Sámi-Norwegain artist and musician from Romsa/Tromsø, Sápmi/Norway. She works interdisciplinary with sound, textiles, text, performance and installations, based on a Sámi understanding of the world, hidden stories and knowledges.

She works with a mix of field recordings, voice, electronics and home-built instruments, and seeks to create sonic spaces that exist somewhere between reality and fantasy, where sound acts like a time machine that causes time to collapse and sets both past and future in motion.

Through collecting fragments of stories, materials and practices she works with what lies in between. The holes that the Norwegian colonisation of Sápmi has created in the form of loss of language and cultural heritage have become a starting point for imagining what these holes might represent, what matter they constitute and how they continue to affect the people in our societies.

Elina runs Šuvva, a platform for Sámi experimental music, sound and listening. She has a master's degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, and has exhibited and performed at places such as Toronto Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Oslo Kunstforening, The Munch Museum, The National Museum in Oslo, Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Lofoten International Art Festival.