Tøyenparken, park and nature reserve, Oslo

Anne Cecilie

Tøyenparken is a park in the middle of Oslo city. It used to be farmland and still has a hay meadow, with a unique ecology linked to it disappearing in Norway as the grass is no longer cut with a scythe. There are trees connected to the Botanical Garden next to it. Therefore the tiny forest presents a multitude of tree species. Tøyenparken is a place where people often party in the summer. Every summer, there are music festivals, it offers a swimming pool, a kindergarten, and is part of Tøyen, the most densely populated and multicultural part of Oslo. 

Googling the park, I came across the name Tufoen which I haven't heard of before or seen and then found an image in Google. It is a platform made with the local school children inside the tiny forest to sit on and reflect, a place that is theirs. I am curious to investigate this spot that came up by chance, although I might also end up in a different spot. 

I chose the park because I am making a site-sensitive geo-locative soundwalk that opens in August in Tøyenparken. I have already worked there in 2018, mapping the whole area with a biologist, a zoologist and a plant researcher and researching the history of the place. It ended in a soundwalk presented in 2018 at the local library that I am now expanding on to include human voices and stories, as the first one focused on the non-human entities that have lived, live, and might live there in the future. I have spent a lot of time in the area. I also lived there before for a year in 2007, but for the soundwalk in 2018, I spent my time there primarily by day, and never for such extended periods in one place, and I am eager to see how my relationship with Tøyen might expand.