2028 will be the great year of Ibsen, 200 years after the author's birth in Skien, Norway. The city is counting down the days and preparations are in full swing. Last year, the first Ibsen Summer Academy took place – a collaboration between Skien municipality, Silver Ore Ibsen Dissemination Centre/Skien Library og The University of South-Eastern Norway (USN).
– This year's theme is "The Wild Duck". We'll dive into the story, the personal gallery and the perspectives they offer, the themes and the symbols, says Annette Winkelmann, project leader at Silver Ore Ibsen Dissemination Centre.
Ibsen Summer Academy has room for 25 participants. Registration deadline is June 15th. First come, first served. All workshops are in English.
In Ibsen's footsteps
Mette Bunting, professor in educational science, is leading the Summer Acdemy project from USN. She encourages all interested parties to take advantage of the opportunity to get to know Ibsen better.
– This is a particularly good opportunity for students. Both in regards to building your CV, but also to learn. It's useful to participate in creative processes where you don't quite know where you'll end up, says Bunting.
She also highlights international networking and social aspects as part of the experience.
– Do something different! You get to walk around Skien and learn about Ibsen's life. Among other things, you will visit the attic that inspired the "The Wild Duck", where Ibsen played with his sister, she reveals.
– A pleasant experience
One of the participants at the Ibsen Summer Academy last year is Kyrylo Khovrenko. He studies to become a teacher at the University of Southeast Norway, campus Porsgrunn. The 23-year-old can highly recommend the summer course.
The participants came from near and far to take a deep dive into Ibsen's world. But what draws a young man from Ukraine to such a gathering?
– I knew a little about Ibsen and wanted to learn more. It was a pleasant experience, where I got to meet people from different countries and do several creative writing exercises. Last year the theme was "The Lady from the Sea", says Kyrylo.
He highlights that Ibsen addresses issues that are still relevant today, and that were ahead of his time.
– At the same time, he manages to touch on aspects of the human being that have been relevant throughout history, says Kyrylo
He came to Norway as a refugee from the war in Ukraine in 2022 and now speaks fluent Norwegian. The fact that the language in Ibsen's works can be somewhat old-fashioned did not prevent him from reading them.
– I am used to using a dictionary, he says and laughs.
Varied programme
The programme for this year's summer course includes several well-known artists, such as author Aasne Linnestå and musician Maja Ratjke. In addition, several Ibsen experts will be present. From the University of South-Eastern Norway, two ladies who know the author well will be presenting:
Merete Morken Andersen
Associate Professor of Non-Fiction Writing at the University of Southeast Norway.
Merete will be contributing to IbsenTalk about "The Wild One": 
– I will talk about how the time when the play was written can be seen in context with and in contrast to our own time. Through my work on the modern breakthrough in Scandinavia, I have studied artists, writers and philosophers who shared Ibsen's zeitgeist. I will illuminate this context and show how Ibsen's exploration of truth and reality gains new relevance in today's 'post-truth' world, where artificial intelligence and algorithms increasingly shape our perception of what is true, real and important.
What is your personal relationship with Ibsen?
– The first textbook I wrote was “The Ibsen Handbook”. It came out in 1995, and in it I analyzed all of Ibsen’s plays. It was a great boost for a young literary scholar, and has probably influenced my own fiction writing, and basically my way of seeing the world. For example, in hindsight, I see that the novel “Hav av tid” from 2002 is in a way a kind of variation on themes in “Vildanden”.
What do you think it does to the study situation to immerse yourself in Ibsen in the city of Skien?
– There is something special about studying Ibsen in the streets and in the places where he himself grew up. I have myself strolled around Snipetorp and Venstøp and tried to imagine what it was like in his time. It gives his texts an extra layer of meaning when you can see the houses, the landscape and tread the same uphills as him. Much is different now, but quite a lot is actually the same as before. I think people will experience that Ibsen's world becomes more alive and close when they can connect the texts to real places. It is like having a direct line to the past; the texts open up in a different way.
What, if anything, do you wish people knew about Ibsen that perhaps not many people know?
– I wish more people knew that Ibsen did not write his poetry in a vacuum. He was in the midst of the most intense cultural clashes and debates of his time. When I was rummaging through old newspapers, history books and magazines to create the timeline Tidsånd.no (while I was actually supposed to write about Amalie Skram), it became clear to me how directly Ibsen reacted to what was happening around him when he wrote poetry. He was a really smart tactician who knew exactly which buttons to push to get people going. Knowing that requires a certain kind of sensitivity to the spirit of the times.
What are your expectations for this year's course?
– It will be nice to meet others who also think about Ibsen and what he thought about. Lifting him into your intellectual life is like embarking on a kind of educational journey. It's fun when you meet others who are wandering around on their journey in the same way.
Tone Cronblad Krosshus
Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of South-Eastern Norway.
Tone will contribute practical theatre perspectives on "The Wild Duck" in this year's Ibsen Summer Academy. Participants in the course will be exposed to micro-staging that explores the themes, characters and symbols of The Wild Duck.
What is your personal relationship with Ibsen?
– I am a theatre scholar, so Ibsen is first and foremost theatre for me. My relationship with Ibsen has therefore been developed through all the theatre productions I have seen. It is interesting how Ibsen's universe and works are created in the present day through the interpretations and expressions of different directors and companies. Rimini Protokoll's production En volkefiende i Oslo, Betty Nansen Teatret's production Gynt and Susan Sontag/Robert Wilson's version of The Lady from the Sea are some of the productions that have brought Ibsen to life for me. These productions also show how theatre can make Ibsen in so many different ways. When it comes to The Wild Duck, which is this year's Ibsen Academy work, there is one production that I will never forget. It is The Wild Duck - Part 2, Director's cut by Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller at Black Box in 2010. I wonder what Ibsen would have said if he had seen it.
What does immersing yourself in Ibsen in Skien City do to your study situation, do you think?
– Maybe being in Skien can provide some new sensory and material inputs to explore Ibsen's places, characters, and symbols.
What, if anything, would you like people to know about Ibsen, that perhaps not many people know?
– I don't know what others would like to know more about, but I would like to see Ibsen's directorial and instructional notes (from the theater archive at the University of Bergen), and know a little more about how he himself thought about directing and staging.
What are your expectations for this year's course?
– I'm just looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to meeting new people through the interdisciplinary and spatial explorations that Ibsen Academy is planning.