First Tarandus Researchers and Artist in Residence set off for the Field Cabin

Today marks the beginning of the Tarandus field-based residency, as the first group of researchers departed for the remote field cabin in Reindalen. Joining them is the first artist in residence of the programme, German multidisciplinary artist Ida Freya Köhn, who will spend the coming weeks living and working alongside scientists, students, and field assistants in the High Arctic tundra.

Developed in partnership with The University Centre in Svalbard, Artica Svalbard’s Tarandus Field-Based Residency creates opportunities for artists and researchers to engage in shared observation and dialogue while embedded within ongoing biological research on Svalbard reindeer.

Köhn’s practice centres on sound as both material and method. Working with field recordings from Arctic and remote environments, she creates immersive sound installations that encourage attentive listening as a way of perceiving environmental change. With a background in biogeochemistry and ecology, Köhn has spent much of the last decade working across Arctic regions including Svalbard, northern Norway, and Iceland.

During her residency, Köhn will record terrestrial and environmental sounds in the Reindalen area, including those of the surrounding landscape, the field cabin, and daily research activities. With a particular focus on soil acoustics, she will explore how sound dynamics shift during the seasonal transition from spring to summer, developing new compositions that investigate listening as a means of sensing ecological change.

Located approximately 40 km south of Longyearbyen, the Tarandus cabin provides a unique setting where artistic and scientific inquiry unfold side by side. Through sustained time in the landscape, the residency encourages exchanges between different ways of understanding environmental change, ecological processes, and relationships between humans and non-human species.

We look forward to following the group’s experiences in the field over the coming weeks and sharing updates from Tarandus as the season progresses.