BARENTS RESIDENCY

Residency organised by Pikene på Broen, Kirkenes 1st-10th of December 2013. I researched rømmekolle, an indigenous fermented milk "yogurt" that will materialise as a project for the arts festival Barents Spektakkel 2015 in Kirkenes, Norway. I interviewed many elderly people in Sør Varanger county about their rømkolle traditions and nearly got hold of an old heirloom culture that had been cultivated by the 92 year old Ovidia Kurti since childhood. Unfortunately it had died 4 months previous to my arrival (!), probably due to her using shop bought milk that must have been contaminated by antibiotics. I am still looking for a culture, and also looking into other ways of creating the starter from a mountain plant.
I also researched milk fermentation in Murmansk, North Russia, and had the pleasure of meeting a lovely family from Tjetchenia and a lady from Arkangelsk. They both had amazing foraging traditions that they introduced me to but unfortunately thy had no fermented milk traditions in their areas. I would hva to travel all the way to Caucasus next time!