In the first half of January, the IAC hosted ‘Jaktlaget’, a participatory performance about the status of hunting in contemporary society. At the beginning of April ‘Jaktlaget’ will enter the second round at IAC, ending up with a premiere at Inkonst on the 12 and 13 April 2019.

‘Jaktlaget’ is a participatory performance. The audience is dressed in naive camouflage and signs up to join a fictive hunting team, posing with trophies, drinking coffee 7 am. It will be both violent and cute, a healthy day in the woods and a cringy nightmare. There are a few rules for the audience: remain silent, move softly, leave no traces, take many photos but only with flash. The dramaturgy is stolen from hunting itself: to prepare, to hunt, to enjoy, to pose with the trophy, to clean up what’s left. Nothing really happens but suddenly – boom. Besides using hunting as a score to explore and encounter the site, together with the audience the participation is made to involve the audience in a humble way with no forced interaction.

A pre-study for ‘Jaktlaget’ was done in 2017 with a couple of work in progress showings at festivals in Norway and Sweden and a research trip to Lofoten in 2018.

‘Jaktlaget’ explores the stereotypical masculine group of hunters from a speculative point of view, researching the status of hunting in contemporary society as something seemingly authentic, something humans have always practiced but which has today transformed into something almost obscure.

Video documentation: Lofoten excursion

The hunt etude – Composition by Patsy Lassbo