Darfegoađi

Joar Nango: 

The very best thing about being out in the wilderness is harvesting nature’s bounty and cooking it and eating it out in the wild. I think that's the very best thing there is. Fishing in the summer and hunting in the autumn. 

Narrator:  

You are listening to Joar Nango, a Sámi architect and artist. 

Nango’s favourite activities are harvesting and building with all kinds of objects he finds around him.  

Joar Nango: 

For humans, it’s a completely natural thing to collect materials in a considerate way from all kinds of natural environments. 

Here we have a darfegoađi, a turf dwelling, which has been built following the principles for building a bealljegoahti, an arch-beamed Sámi dwelling. The main supports are four curved birch trunks that are pegged together to form a kind of dome, with earth and turf on the outside. 

Here we’ve fetched some pine trees and birch trees, and we fetched some plants that we’ve planted in the small garden area on the roof of the National Museum. So we’re trying to create a green lung, a small breathing space with a hearth. A place to creep into to enter another time, in the midst of Oslo’s asphalt and concrete jungle.  

Something green, a green space, a space to breathe, a little lung. 

Narrator:  

You can try it out for yourself. Take a seat around the fire, feel the warmth, spend time alongside the other people sitting there with you. There’s no need to say anything. Just sit there, gathered together, in the middle of the city. 

Joar Nango: 

Being together, gathering around an open fire, just that simple action is something that’s not easily available to young people growing up in cities today.  

We’ve got a hearth, and not only an outdoor hearth, but a small space that’s been constructed around the hearth. And that’s exactly what a Sámi turf dwelling is. It’s really just a covering, a small shelter around a space to protect the fire, a place to be near the fire and enjoy both the firelight and the warmth that you get from this kind of open-air fire and the hearth. 

A.. darfegoađi.