In May-July 2024, thirteen participants took part in the second edition of the Online Creative Residency from Europeana’s Digital Storytelling Festival. Angelina Fors explored her family history to add a human touch to the collections of her home region.
Exploring the theme of 'journey', participants worked with mentors in animation, social media, collage art, storytelling with 3D, and creative writing.
The call for home - Kuoksu, Sweden
I am born in the little stream I call home,
My life is complete in seven years.
I swim, I eat, I grow.
When I am old enough, I swim downstream
To the vast ocean, deep and dark.
I swim, I live, I learn.
Then I feel the call for home.
It starts as a tugging in my scales,
And I know. I know, I know.
So I make the journey home,
To the little pond and stream I call home.
I go, I mate,
I give my short, radiant life,
To the stream I call home.
My cycle is at an end,
And the end is where it begins,
And it begins where it ends,
With the call for home.
My time has come, and I swim upstream,
I slow down, pulse stops, my last shuddering breath.
Then I die, washed ashore with brothers and sisters,
New ones are born, life returned.
I live, I go, I come home,
I die, I give, they live,
In the little stream,
I call home.
You never quite know when that last summer along the Torne river with your grandparents will be. Then, you’ve had it but you didn’t know, and you never knew you would never have it again.
Watching through the glass walls of your memories is a cruel hobby only those with regret indulge in, as addictive as any.
The ticking of the old clock echoes as my feet shuffle through the creaking door. The sun rising on the horizon, hitting the window and blinding me as I rub sleep from my eyes. They´re all packed, ready to drive north. Past the Arctic circle, past the Jockfall and the salmon returning home to die, either for their eggs or for us.
Grandpa sits to the left on the green table, smiling as he eats his oatmeal straight from the pan having finished his morning run. Grandma pulls out the chair and pours milk over my bowl, topped with lingonberry jam.
The quiet as dawn yawns along with me, my grandparents´ eyes crinkling with indulging smiles as they woke long before me and the sun.
The clock ticks more quietly in the day, as if the sun itself has hushed it. They drink their coffee, speaking low in Meänkieli about things I don’t understand in a language I never learned. 'In my day, we learned to drink coffee at the age of three.' A story grandma always repeats whenever me or my cousin are picky about food.
I remember feeling smug when I showed them my homework, they were so stupid for not knowing English. A memory that burns me with shame. If only I could go back. All I have are the memories they left behind. The images of their being, the sounds of their existence, and the feeling of their roots spreading out inside my DNA. Their existence a call for home I never thought I would feel.
I bang on the glass. Let me in.
Flour puffs up as she kneads. Grandpa wipes his shoes in the hallway as he comes in, holding the tiny sharp hooks. I know they´re sharp because the year before, my cousin hooked one in his ear when he threw it from behind to reach as far out into the Torne River as he could. I know he wanted to cry, but he didn’t. So neither did I.
Grandma speaks to Grandpa in Meänkieli. My mood sours. He smiles. 'Are you ready?'
I was never nice in the mornings, I simply nod as I purse my ungrateful lips so I don’t lash out, trying to choke down the disrespect. Yet, it can’t help but spill onto my face as it twists my features into frowns and grunts and huffs. If only I could go back, slap my younger self, and yell at her, or better, take her place. But the memory plays out as it always does. The younger me, idiotic and moronic and all the other adjectives for stupid, while I watch from behind that cruel glass wall in the hallway of my mind. Always trapped. Always forced to see the memories play out the same way, over and over and over again.
I bang and I bang and I bang but the glass never cracks, never breaks.
The mosquitoes are killing me. Buzzing, biting, hunting. Grandpa always sighs at my annoyance, thinking I was a spoiled city girl. I was. Compared to him.
We hike up the mountain, his mountain. He points over the horizon in the dense forest and tells me his land ends at the lake at the bottom of our mountain and stretches over it to the right. 'I was the oldest of my thirteen siblings, so this mountain is mine.'
What I loathe about this memory is how he tells me the name of our small mountain, not big enough to be found on Google, not big enough to matter to anyone but me. Him. Grandma. Our family. He said the name of our mountain was Taulovara. But I have no idea, no f****** clue, how to spell it. I remember the syllables tumbling out, running over his tongue, the sound they made as they travelled on the winds of his voice, making their way through my ear, and lodging themselves into my brain, branding them into memory forever.
But I didn’t care enough then to ask, to tell him to show me more. To ask how to spell our small, stupid f****** mountain. I did not realise this mountain was all that would be left after his remains turned to ash.
I bang on the glass again, begging the younger me to ask. But she never does. So Taulovara is how I am forced to spell it, because I never cared enough about our history, about them, until there was no one left to tell me.
The bread swells as Grandma puts the dough on the muurikka, the flames of our fire heating it from below. The smoke from the fire keeps the mosquitoes at bay but I still hear their incessant hunt for blood just outside the protection of the smoke.
The river always scared me. Despite it, I had said nothing as we took the tiny boat upstream to this tiny island. The darkness of the water made my knuckles white and muscles freeze when the boat rocked. Their stories of how the water looks calm but if you fall in, will pull you under like a beast trying to feast.
Grandpa was by the water, cleaning the fish we would grill with the bread. The reindeer hide under me kept the wet and cold at bay, the hairs itching through my pants. 'The butter is in the cooler.' Grandma points at the grotesque blue and white ancient-looking box filled with white plastic ice-blocks. I take the butter out, smearing it on the bread, still warm from cooking over open fire.
I bang on the glass. Let me in. Just one more time. One last time. Let me in.
About the author
Who am I?
I am currently completing my degree in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing in Sweden as I spent the last five years in South Korea. I am also working on my novel along other projects.
Growing up in the north, a part of Sweden even most Swedes never get to experience, is something near and dear. It shaped me, followed with me to the other side of the world and their memories will follow me wherever I end up in the future.
A little bit of Kuoksu will always stay with me.
What is my project about?
These are small pieces of me, my family, our history, and hopefully, a more personalised history of a region largely forgotten. I hope that this will humanise and make a part of the world most don´t think about, to feel a little closer to home.
Why did I apply for the Online Creative Residency?
I saw it as a chance to show a side of my writing I don´t often delve into. It was also a new opportunity to grow as a writer and gain experience, as well as the unique opportunity Europeana offers that can show the little place I call home to others who might not even know it exists.
What have I got out of the residency?
Immense experience, inspiration from all of the creatives I´ve met through this residency, wonderful opportunity to learn and observe, and the fact that I have a small piece of my writing as well as my family´s history published. Their memory will live on.
What will I do next?
I think for now, these stories will be shelved. I might revisit them in the future but my focus now is my full-length novel I´ve been working on. It is still writing, though in a vastly different genre. I will take everything that I´ve learned and use it moving forward.