Theia
Marie Nerland

25th of May - 11th of August 2024

With: Mette Edvardsen, Jiska Huizing, Andrea Sørlie Barrett, Mariama Fatou Kalley Slåttøy, Icaro Zorbar

Curated by Mathijs van Geest

Opening: Saturday 25 May 2024
13:00: Performance by Marie Nerland and Andrea Sørlie Barrett
14:00 - 17:00: Exhibition on view

The performance is also shown on Sunday 26 May at 12:00 and 13:00.

Please note that the performance starts on time! Duration approximately 20 minutes. The event is free to attend but available spots are limited. To reserve your spot send an email with preferred time slot to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)


The project Theia by the Trondheim based artist Marie Nerland consists of an exhibition, several performances and an upcoming publication. Theia is inspired by a widely acclaimed hypothesis about how the moon came into existence. It suggests that billions of years ago a large planet from the early solar system, sometimes described as a sibling planet to Earth, collided with the Earth with immense impact. While parts of Theia integrated with Earth’s body, a large piece of the planet got caught in Earth’s orbit, becoming the Moon as we know it today.

To speak of the event that birthed our moon rather than destroyed an entire planet, suggests a hopeful narrative about the journey of objects and how they are altered in multiple and complex ways, through changing circumstances and sometimes clashes. Building upon this story of collision, the exhibition and its associated events are based around the motif of encounter, threading through both objects and artistic practices.

The installation shown in the HKS gallery space consists mainly of found objects and architectural structures used to support previous exhibitions, gathered from various art institutions in and around Bergen, such as plinths, benches and left-over wall structures. When they come together, these individual pieces each with their scars and damages - otherwise discarded or stored away - form a tableau of memories and past events.

Nerland has invited several artists to take part in the project. The performance she has developed for Theia is co-created with and performed by the dancer Andrea Sørlie Barrett. The artists Icaro Zorbar and Mette Edvardsen have both been invited to present a newly produced performance piece, which will be presented in the gallery space during the last weekend of the exhibition.

The Oslo based artist Jiska Huizing has also been invited by Nerland to create a new work, an audio piece that adds sound to the installation and exhibition space. This work, combined with a recording of the performer Mariama Slåttøy reading a text written by Nerland, resonates through the gallery space in a loop.

A video work and a series of photographs showing an eclectic selection of objects yet all belonging to the same life, are dispersed throughout the exhibition space, integrated in the installation. Like going through someone’s moving boxes studying their belongings, these images - moving and still - provide a sense of how the past and the present are tangled up in one another. Seen as a whole Theia seems to ponder the question: What is a memory?


Program during the closing weekend
Friday 9 August
18:00: Performance lecture by Marie Nerland

Saturday 10 August
16:00: Performance by Icaro Zorbar
17:00: Performance by Mette Edvardsen
18:00: Kitchen Dinner

Sunday 11 August
8:00 Morning session: Sound piece by Jiska Huizing

More information about these events will be announced later.

The publication produced as part of Theia will be released towards the end of 2025.



Bios

Marie Nerland is a Norwegian artist and curator who has studied political science, comparative literature, and holds an MA degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Bergen and a MA-level degree in curatorial practice from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design. Her artistic practice focuses on performance and text-based work, often made in collaboration with other artists. Nerland is the founder of Volt, a long-term, Bergen-based curatorial project that focuses on commissioning and presenting new contemporary artworks by practitioners working across a diverse range of media. Since 2019 Nerland has been part of the long-term project The Wetland Pavilion – an initiative based in and around Oslo’s Østensjøvannet nature reserve.

Her most recent projects are Machine Membranes, with Nayara Leite and Mari Kvien Brunvoll, at Lydgalleriet (2023); Reveries, with Icaro Zorbar, at Oppland Kunstsenter, Lillehammer (2022); Lyset midt i oktober at Paviljong Våtmark, Østensjøvannet, Oslo (2022); Echolocation at P////AKT, Amsterdam (2019); Signposts Tromsø at Small Projects, Tromsø (2019); Signpost at Hordaland Kunstsenter (2018), all three in collaboration with Nickel van Duijvenboden; and a lecture performance at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall (2017).

Icaro Zorbar is an Oslo-based artist from Bogotá, Colombia. He has an MA from the Art Academy in Bergen in 2017. His work is rooted in questions about the fragile human attempt to survive time. Memories and technology are closely linked. He seeks to formulate narratives in poetic circumstances through the intervention of devices, sound, and video. He has recently shown work at Vestlandsutstillingen 2022, Oppland Kunstsenter, Lydgalleriet, Modern Art Museum in Bogota, Osnabrück Kunsthalle, and the Lyon Biennale.

Mette Edvardsen has a an artistic practice situated within the performing arts field as a choreographer and performer. Although some of her works explore other media or other formats, such as video, books and writing, her interest is always in their relationship to the performing arts as a practice and a situation. She has worked since 1994 as a dancer and performer for a number of companies and projects, and develops her own work since 2002. She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists, both as a collaborator and as a performer.

Jiska Huizing is a Dutch artist living and working in Oslo, Norway. Working with sound, photography, artist books, text and guided walks, they create work that contains a sense of searching and wandering, and that questions the ways in which we perceive our surroundings. Huizing holds an MA from the Bergen Academy of Arts and Design. Their work has been presented at amongst others Van Etten, Lydgalleriet, RUMMUR_radio, Vestlandsutstillingen 2019, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Academy Minerva and HIAP, Helsinki.

Andrea Sørlie Barrett is a Norwegian-Canadian dancer based in Oslo. She graduated from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2021 with a BA in Contemporary Dance. Since then she has worked as a performer in projects with choreographers such as Tendai Makurumbandi, Tormod Midtbø, Ingri Fiksdal and Fieldworks.

Mariama Fatou Kalley Slåttøy is educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and holds a BA degree in Performing Dance. She works within the field of independent performing arts as well as at institutional theatres, and has worked with choreographers, directors and artists such as Ingri Fiksdal, Fredrik Floen, Eline Arbo, Ole Martin Meland and Jon Tombre. She has been involved in a number of theater productions, musicals as well as film and TV projects - developing and producing her own and others’ dance short films, and as a dancer and actor.


The exhibition has received funding from Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen Municipality and Vederlagsfondet.

Foto: Signe Lidén

Planning. Plane-ing.
Letting plans go, letting the body plan.
Letting it wander the plain.
Through the air, held up by the air.
Like birds flying with their wings still.

Et vennskap har en spesiell type bevegelse, en rytme. Det er en kombinasjon av en slags synkronitet, respekt og tillit. Kunstnerne har kjent hverandre siden 2009, og dette er det første prosjektet de gjør sammen. For anledningen har de vært opptatt av minner og tankenes vandring. Utstillingen i Glasskuben på Oppland kunstsenter består av en installasjon med video og fotografier.

Icaro Zorbar er fra Bogota, Colombia, og bor og arbeider i Oslo. I sin kunstpraksis komponerer han poetiske omgivelser i form av narrative installasjoner der ulike teknologier blandes. Hans seneste utstillinger er blant annet Lydgalleriet/Borealis (2019), Modern Art Museum i Bogota (2019), Osnabrück Kunsthalle (2017) og Lyon-biennalen (2017).
https://www.icarozorbar.com

Marie Nerland er fra Molde og bor og arbeider i Trondheim og Bergen. Hun er kurator og kunstner. Som kunstner arbeider hun med performance, tekst og video, og ofte er prosjektene i samarbeid med andre kunstnere. Kommende prosjekter er Paviljong Våtmark ved Østensjøvannet i Oslo (2022) og Lydgalleriet (2023). Seneste prosjekter er vist ved Small Projects i Tromsø (2019), P///AKT i Amsterdam (2019), Hordaland kunstsenter (2018) og Landmark, Bergen kunsthall (2017).
https://www.marienerland.no

Prosjektet er realisert med tilskudd fra Regionale prosjektmidler for visuell kunst/KiN. Takk til Harpefoss kunstarena for opphold der.

Pro tempore presents different contemporary artistic practices from the south coast region in Norway. In the centre of the exhibition is a long shared table, onto which several of the artworks are displayed. The table also functions as a meeting place, a place for workshops, collaboration, exchanges and cooperation. The exhibition presents several time-based works, including live radio, performance, film, video and sound installation, in addition to two ongoing projects throughout the exhibition period: The parallel university with a program of talks, lectures and discussions, and a drawing club which invites the public to come and draw together.

Artists: Christine Albeck, Ørjan Amundsen, Karou Calamy
, Lina Cepulyte, Yngvild Færøy & Søssa Jørgensen, Kirsti van Hoegee, Jonathan Mayhew, Knut H. Odden, Karen Pettersen, Mathilde Pettersen, Jadwiga B. Podowska, Ane Sagatun, André Tribbensee, Marit Viljugrein, Lasse Årikstad.


Photo credit: Petter Sandell, Jonathan Mayhem.

aiPotu, BADco. with Espen Sommer Eide, Ingri Fiksdal, Grafters’ Quarterly, Signe Lidén, Mette Edvardsen, Mai Hofstad Gunnes, Adrian Heathfield og Wendy Houstoun, Signe Lidén, Isabell Lorey og Stefano Harney, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Marion von Osten, Jon Benjamin Tallerås, TASC Ablett & Brafield, Øystein Aasan.

5 - 17 June 2015, Bergen

Imagining Commons – twelve days of exhibitions, performances, a camp, talks and lectures.
Imagining Commons is funded by Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen, Fritt Ord and Public Art Norway (URO).

www.v-o-l-t.no

Institutions need to be constructed

– a camp by BADco. with Espen Sommer Eide, Ingri Midgard Fiksdal, Grafters’ Quarterly, Signe Lidén

Arna Industrihus
Ytre Arna

5 - 6 June 2015

Over a period of 24 hours and on the location of a former factory, BADco. intends to stage the problems of relations between production, labour, watching and resting together with a group of invited artists and spectators. The situation and the space are a transformation of the set of the very first film ever made, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (1895), into a performing space, but also a social, cultural and discussion centre, camp, dormitory, etc. This will create a space for a discussion of the topics of work, watching and the attention economy; of productivity in the arts, the ethics of work, the disappearance of production in favour of presentation, and the valorization of the arts by way of non-aesthetic spheres of social production. The camp is the first in the series of events that will conclude BADco.’s ten years of research on the parallel history of film, work and performance.

BIOs:

BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic core of the collective consists of Ivana Ivkovic, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Lovro Rumiha and Zrinka Užbinec. Since its beginning (2000) this combination of three choreographers/dancers, two dramaturges and one philosopher, plus the company production manager, has systematically focused on researching protocols of performing, presenting and observing by structuring its pro-jects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. BADco.’s working process is reflected in their performances, which are strongly interdisciplinary and take place at the intersection of theatre, performance, installation and architecture. Over the years BADco. has produced more than twenty evening-long stage performances as well as publications and seminars on the topic of performance. Recent projects include the performance The Drawer (2015); the publication Time and (In)Completion – Images and performances of time in late capitalism (2014); the performative installation Broken Performances (2013), Gallery Nova, Zagreb; TVolution will not be televised (2013), Skogen, Gothenburg; Responsibility for Things Seen: Tales in Negative Space, the Croatian exhibition at the 54th Venice Biennale, curated by the curators’ collective What, How & for Whom/WHW (2011).
badco.hr

Espen Sommer Eide is a musician and artist from Tromsø. With the musical projects Alog and Phonophani he has been among the most prominent representatives of experimental electronic music from Norway, with a string of releases on the label Rune Grammofon. He has also produced a series of site-specific pieces and artworks. These projects include a multichannel composition for the 50th anniversary of the completion of the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France; and a special ‘Building Instruments’ performance at the 2008 Manifesta Biennial. He recently had a solo exhibition, Dead Language Poetry, at Bergen Kunsthall/No.5 2013, and performed The Weed Archive at the 2013 Performa Festival in New York. Eide is also a member of the theatre/art collective Verdensteatret, with extensive international touring and exhibitions. Eide has been involved in a series of art and archival projects associated with topics relating to the Barents and Arctic regions of Northern Norway.
sommer.alog.net

Ingri Midgard Fiksdal is a choreographer and performer. She is currently a research fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Program). Fiksdal’s work deals with perception and affectivity, and several of her pieces take shape as part performance and part live concert. The audience is always integral to the work, which aims to produce temporary collectives between performers and spectators. The notion of collectivity here refers to modes of attention and sensorial transference, rather than to interactivity. Her recent productions Hoods (2014), Night Tripper (2012) and The Orchard Ballads (2011) all created together with the artists Signe Becker and Ingvild Langgård, have been touring to venues such as brut Künstlerhaus in Vienna, Kampnagel in Hamburg, Inkonst in Malmö, The Armory Show in New York City, the LIMIT festival in Belgrade, as well as several venues around Norway. Hoods won the Norwegian Dance Critics’ Award from the Norwegian Critics’ Association in 2014.
ingrifiksdal.com

Signe Lidénis an artist based in Bergen. Her installations and performances examine man-made landscapes and their resonance. She is interested in how places and their histories resonate; in memory, through narratives and various materials, as ideological manifestations and political territories. Her work ranges from sound installations, sculpture, video and performance to more documentary forms such as sound essays and archives. Lidén made the sound and video work krysning/conflux for the Dark Ecology project (2014); the installation series Writings for the European Sound Art Network Resonance (2013-14); and collaborated with Steve Rowell and Annesofie Norn on The Cold Coast Archive (2010-12), an exhibition series on the Global Seed Vault launched at the Centre for PostNatural History, Pittsburgh. She was commissioned to make works for Hordaland Art Center, Kunsthall Oslo and Ny Musikk, Touch Radio, and Interferenze New Arts Festival.
signeliden.com

Grafters’ Quarterly is a free, English-language newspaper based in Bergen. The four issues each year present both new commissioned contributions and reprints from numerous fields within a topic specific to each issue. The first three issues of the newspaper were titled “Improvising Logics”, “Indexing Abstraction”, and “Social Thing Person”. The fourth issue will be launched in the summer of 2015 and takes its starting point in ideas relating to work ethics. Grafters’ Quarterly was founded and is edited by the artists Tora Endestad Bjørkheim and Johnny Herbert. The name of the newspaper alludes to ‘grafting’, denoting writing, the merging of one plant with another to facilitate continued growth, as well as a more colloquial expression for working.
graftersquarterly.com

The project is funded by the City of Bergen and with travel support from Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Culture. It is part of Imagining Commons – twelve days of exhibitions, performances, talks, discussions and lectures 5th – 17th June 2015 in Bergen.
Imagining Commons is funded by Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen, Fritt Ord and Public Art Norway (URO).

Photos: Thor Brødreskift

Stranges stiftelse
Klostergaten 28 på Nordnes i Bergen
Torsdag 15. januar 2014 kl. 19:00

Kjære publikummer.

Velkommen til Fattighuset og Leseprøve for voksne med Arve Kleiva, Marie Nerland og Øyvind Ådland. Noen av oss tre har interessert seg mer for greske eventyr enn andre. Vi har likevel trivdes i hverandres selskap og samarbeidet en sjelden gang, sist i forbindelse med forestillingen Kong Oidipus i Bergen gamle kretsfengsel (Audiatur, 2012). Denne gang har arbeidet ført til en tre–fire dramatiske tekster som vi her presenterer som leseprøver, også kalt sketsjer, på engelsk: sketches. For et år siden gjenoppleste og leste vi alene og av og til sammen et utvalg tekster av den tyske dramatiker Heiner Müller, kunne dette være inspirerende? Etter litt fant vi ut at Medeatrilogien, som Müllers Medea-materiale kalles på folkemunne, var noe som kunne anspore kunstvirksomhet med skriving og fremføring av tekst og en hel del annet. Av deg som publikummer forventer vi at hvis du lurer på noe etter leseprøvene kan du dele det med en venn. Det er OK at du applauderer når du føler for det, men vi håper på den avgjørende og mest langvarige applausen etter siste innslag, som er sketsjen Ord for dagen.
God fornøyelse.

På vegne av oss tre vennene:
Øyvind Ådland

Prosjektet er støttet av Bergen kommune – Seksjon for kunst og kultur.

On collectivity and collaboration in art
- a symposium

21 - 24 November 2013

With: aiPotu, Mala Kline, Myriam Van Imschoot, Mette Edvardsen, Katla, Lewis & Taggart, Kristien Van den Brande, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens.

Program:
Opening Thursday 21 November 2013 at 20:00
Landmark/Bergen Kunsthall
Katla “Surfacing for Air” and aiPotu


Friday 22. November at 10:30 - 16:00
House of Litterature in Bergen
Myriam Van Imschoot “To Wave” at 11:00
Roundtable sessions with aiPotu, Mala Kline, Lewis & Taggart, Kristien Van der Brande, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens.

22. - 24. November
Cabin in Kvamskogen

BIO:

aiPotu is a collaboration between the artists Anders Kjellesvik and Andreas Siqueland. They met at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen in 2004 and have since worked together on travel-related projects. aiPotu began their collaboration with the purchase of an old mobile home. The vehicle served as the artists’ home, means of transport and exhibition space on a series of expeditions from 2004–2007. The first journey was Tour of Europe in which the figure of a number eight drawn on the European map served as their itinerary. Underway aiPotu made interventions in the public space, often in collaboration with local institutions. This was followed up with Nordic Tour. The work done was often social and sculptural nature. An example is Hotel in which the camper van was converted into a functioning hotel outside Bergen Kunsthall. Many of these early works were closely tied to the concept of an island: a closed, isolated and independent environment. In 2007 aiPotu decided to visit and connect different island communities by going on an Island Tour. The project began with a tour of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Some of aiPotu´s recent exhibitions and projects include Five Thousand Generations of Birds, Fitjar, Norway, Museo d’Arte Orientale, Torino, Italy, Boomerang Boat Museum, South Shields, England; Hordaland kunstsenter, Bergen, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; 16th Biennale of Sydney – Revolutions Forms That Turn; Tentshow, Kunsthallen Nikolaj in Copenhagen, Bergen Kunsthall; Volt, Bergen and Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo.
aipotu.org

Kristien Van den Brande is a writer, performer, dramaturge and editor in the field of performing arts. Many of the projects she is involved in explore the relation between speech and writing, transcribing and (re)embodying spoken or written word. Since 2008 she has been a member of Sarma, a Brussels-based artistic-discursive laboratory where she collaborates with Myriam Van Imschoot on notions and practices of embodied knowledge, oral transmission, interview archives and expanded publishing. She was a dramaturge for Christine De Smedt’s solo Untitled 4 (2011), a series of performative portraits of affiliated choreographers, based on re-incorporated interviews. This year she worked with Sarah Vanhee on Lecture For Every One, and in 2012 on Untitled (Leuven) and Untitled (Gent), a project that takes place in the houses of people who in their own language speak about the art objects they hold and how they relate to art outside the domestic environment. As a performer she takes part in Mette Edvardsen’s ongoing Time Has Fallen Asleep in the Afternoon Sunshine, learning books by heart and reading them from memory. In 2005 she was a researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, working on a collective research project initiated by Wim Cuyvers, about public space in Kinshasa-Brazzaville. It resulted in the book Brakin. Visualizing the Visible. Kristien Van den Brande has a MA in Pedagogical Philosophy and Theater Studies.

Mette Edvardsen
The work of Mette Edvardsen is situated within the performing arts field, but also explores other media and formats such as video and books. She has worked for several years as a dancer and performer for Les Ballets C. de la B. with Hans Van den Broeck (1996–2000) and Christine de Smedt (2000–2005), and danced in pieces by Thomas Hauert/ ZOO, Bock/ Vincenzi, Mårten Spångberg, Lynda Gaudreau, deepblue, and others. She created and produced two pieces in collaboration with Lilia Mestre, and made the project Sauna in Exile in collaboration with Heine R. Avdal, Liv Hanne Haugen and Lawrence Malstaf in 2002/2004. She choreographed and performed a version of Thomas Lehmen’s Schreibstück together with Christine de Smedt and Mårten Spångberg in 2004. Her own work includes the pieces Private collection (2002), Time will show (detail) (2004), Opening (2005/ 2006), The way/ you move (installation, 2006), or else nobody will know (2007), every now and then (2009), Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2010), Black (2011), and the video works Stills (2002), coffee (2006), cigarette (2008) and Faits divers (2008). She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists as both a collaborator and as a performer.
metteedvardsen.be

Myriam Van Imschoot is a Brussels-based writer and performance artist who works with sound and interview archives with an interest in the performative nature of documents and the construction of alternative historiographies. Fascinated by phenomena of long distance communication, she embarked on a cycle of works that deal with yodeling, crying and waving. Dealing with the question of proximity and distance, absence and resonance, she pursues her interest in the way humans attempt to bridge the gaps. Her work crosses disciplines such as sound installation, performance and video. It has been supported and presented by Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum Buda, Vooruit, Jan van Eyck Academie, Recyclart, MUU Galerie, Binaural Nodar Sound Arts Centre, Campo, Kran Film Collective, Suburban Video Lounge, Sculpture International Rotterdam and Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.
myriamvanimschoot.wordpress.com

Katla is the collaborative venture of Mathijs van Geest, Jonas Ib F. H. Jensen and Ånond Versto. Established in 2010, Katla has evolved into an eclectic institution lavished with nomadic, bureaucratic and corporate tendencies. Under the flag of the organization, the crew explores oceans and terrains. Voyages are set to investigate and formulate new myth and systems of ideas. Recent exhibitions and events took place at Kristiansand Kunsthall, Sound of Mu, Tag Team Studio in Bergen and and on the ocean with the boat Calypso.
talkapokalyps.com

Mala Kline is a performer, choreographer, researcher and writer. She has a BA in philosophy and comparative literature (UL, Ljubljana) and MA in theatre (DasArts, Amsterdam). Her own writing is embedded in the technology of dreaming – a creative and performative practice based on the affective and transformative performance of image. She founded EMANAT – Institute for the Affirmation and Development of Dance and Contemporary Art in Slovenia, SOI Slovenia for the dissemination of dream and imagery work throughout the EU, and recently DREAMLAB – a mobile laboratory for research and development of imagery and dream work in relation to performing art practices. She currently studies at the School of Images (NYC) and is writing a PhD on ethics in performing arts at the Department of Philosophy (UL, Ljubljana) and within the framework of a.pass (a post-master’s programme for performing arts in Brussels). She has received major awards in the field of contemporary dance in Slovenia: the Golden Bird Award (Zlata ptica), the Triton Award (Povodni Moz) and most recently the Award of Ksenja Hribar for choreography.
malakline.com

Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens
In their collaborative practice, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens heighten the allusive and deconstructive features of language in order to interrogate knowledge formations, institutional contexts, and social and political entanglements. Their work is characterized by a minimalist approach to the form and construction of the art object and a use of materials as a way to make ideas visible.
From 2008 to 2010 they developed an umbrella project entitled Horse and Sparrowthat is concerned with the production of visual and semantic devices that articulate a reticence towards the models, systems, and narratives put forth by economists. Other works, such as Supply and Demand for Immortality, a double-wall mural produced for the 10th Sharjah Biennial in 2011 examine how desire and belief influence economic discourse and practices but also carry the potential to incite new forms of economy. Their more recent projects examine the question of labour subjugated to the politics of growth and possible forms of resistance to this subjugation. Their works have been exhibited at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow; Sharjah Biennial 10, UAE; Ausland, Berlin; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; Owens Art Gallery, Sackville; Western Front, Vancouver; Trafó, House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest, and the European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück. Recent solo exhibitions include I’d gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul, G Gallery, Toronto (2012); Real failure needs no excuse, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012) and The Space of Observation, 221A, Vancouver (2011). Their artistic projects and writings have been published in Le Merle, C-magazine, New Social Inquiry, and Pyramid Power.
ibghylemmens.com

Andrew Taggart and Chloe Lewis are a Canadian artist duo based in Norway, where they received a joint MFA in 2010 from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design. Focusing primarily on the relationship between place and form, their work typically manifests as sculptural collections, artist books, and site-based interventions. They have most recently exhibited at Small Projects, Tromsø; NoPlace, Oslo; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. In parallel to their studio practice, Lewis & Taggart operate the Museum of Longing and Failure, a small museum with an emphasis on sculptural practices.
lewisandtaggart.com

The symposium is supported by Fritt Ord and Arts Council Norway.
v-o-l-t.no

http://www.kunstkritikk.no/artikler/fargelaere/

The CHROMA project is inspired by British artist, writer and filmmaker Derek Jarman’s book ”Chroma – a book of Colour” (1993). Jarman worked and experimented with a range of different media including film, photography, writing, the diary format, collages and gardening. ”Chroma” consists of a mix of observations, quotations and meditations on life and colour. It contains of 19 essays on the primary colours as well as white, black, grey, silver, gold, shadow, light and translucence.

With new works by Azar Alsharif, Signe Becker, Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Phil Coy, Hildegunn Dale, Erik J. Worse Eriksen, John Hegre, Johannes Heldén, Cesilie Holck, Jenny Hval, Dimitris Ioannou, Marte Johnslien, Cecilia Jonsson, Stian Eide Kluge, Knud Young Lunde, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Linda Rogn, Marthe Elise Stramrud, Monika Zawadzki, Yokoland, Øyvind Ådland.

CHROMA I
Cesilie Holck, Knud Young Lunde, Linda Rogn, Monika Zawadzki, Øyvind Ådland
Premiss
Damsgårdsveien 35, Bergen
26 – 28 August 2011

CHROMA II
Azar Alsharif, Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Hildegunn Dale, Erik J. Worsøe Eriksen, John Hegre, Johannes Heldén
Allégaten 34, Bergen
4 - 9 February 2012

CHROMA III
Signe Becker, Phil Coy, Dimitris Ioannou, Marte Johnslien, Yokoland
Bergen Kjøtt
5 - 15 May 2012

CHROMA IV
Jenny Hval, Cecilia Jonsson, Stian Eide Kluge, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Marthe Elise Stramrud
Skostredet 20, Bergen
16 - 22 March 2013

About the participants:

Azar Alsharif is a visual artist, who graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Art Academy at Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2011. She works primarily with collage, installation and sculpture, drawing on a range of materials and techniques. She usually uses found imagery as her point of departure. Recent exhibitions include the group show No One Should Call You A Dreamer at Galleri F15, Eyes On Your Instruments at One Night Only, Reshuffling Forest (Hellebou Vol. 3) at Holodeck and Out Of The Blue And Into The Black at Bergen Kjøtt (all 2011).
http://www.azaralsharif.com

Signe Becker works as a freelance scenographer and artist. She holds a BA degree in Scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy in Fredrikstad (2006), and an MA degree in Visual Communication from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2008). Her practice is wide-ranging and incorporates theatre, performance and dance productions as well as her own art projects. The last few years she has been working on a range of productions for different institutions including the Black Box Teater (2006-2012), Hordaland Theatre (2007), Rogaland Theatre (2008), Grusomhetens Teater (2009), Dansens Hus (2009), Dramatikkens Hus (2010), Teaterhuset Avant Garden (2011), and the Baltic Circle in Helsinki (2011). Since 2006, she has worked as an in-house scenographer for Verk Produksjoner, who won Production of the Year 2011 for “Det eviga leendet”. Together with the choreographer Ingri Fiksdal and the artist and musician Ingvild Langgård, Becker created the production “The Orchard Ballads” (2011) and the team is currently working on a new concert/performance project entitled “Night Tripper”.
http://www.signebecker.com

Mari Kvien Brunvoll graduated from the Grieg Academy in Bergen in 2010. She uses her voice as a bass, drums, for the mediation of texts, and as abstract soundscapes with the help of electronic devices such as samplers and effect boxes. She also enjoys supplementing her musical expression with string instruments such as the kalimba and zither, as well as using bells and other percussion instruments. Kvien Brunvoll has had a number of vocal/electronica solo performances over the last five years, and has held concerts across Europe, in India, and in Norway, including at the Ekko Festival in Bergen, the Arts Festival of North Norway, Oslo Jazz Festival and Molde International Jazz Festival. In addition to her solo projects, Kvien Brunvoll is also part of the trio Building Instrument together with Øyvind Hegg-Lunde and Åsmund Weltzien and the lo-fi pop duo Tim Tyg with Johanne B. Svendsen. She also works collaboratively with Stein Urheim, and in 2011 they released the album Stein & Mari´s Daydream Community on Jazzland Recordings. She also works with cross-disciplinary projects, including installation and performance art.

Phil Coy is an artist based in London. He studied at Liverpool John Moores, Ecole des Beaux Arts de Nantes and The Slade School of fine art. Working predominantly in film and video his works also encompass drawing, installation, photography, sound, performance, text pieces and architecture and are often characterized by a structural approach to materials and processes. Recent solo exhibitions and screenings include: ”Façade”, Whitechapel Gallery, 2011. ”Façade”, South London Gallery, 2010. Wordland, ”An attempt to avoid the dissatisfaction that everything relevant will not be recorded”, Volt, Gallery USF 2010, ”Wordland”, a LUX Event at The Arcola Theatre, London, 2008. ”Wordland, Outpost”, Norwich, 2008. ”Wordland”, City Projects, 2008. Recent / forthcoming group shows include: Whitstable Biennale 2012. Recollect; Wysing Arts Centre, 2012. Façade; National glass centre, 2011. Phil Coy & Yuko Shiraishi; The Russian Club Gallery 2010. Whitstable Biennale, 2010. DIY; Ars Nova Museum, Turku, Finland, 2007. Phil Coy: Test Signal, Hannah Rickards: Thunder, South London Gallery, 2006. Real Estate, London in Six easy steps, ICA, 2005. Incommunicado; Cornerhouse, 2004. Recent performances from auto-cue include: ‘Adaptive reuse and exfiltration’ at Whitechapel, 2010 and ‘Where petty theft sleeps’, at Arnolfini, 2010.
http://www.philcoy.info

Hildegunn Dale is a writer. Her literary debut was a collection of poems entitled Solkant published by Samlaget in 2003. Samlaget also published her children’s book Skugge over Grønskarvet (2007) and the poetry collections Elvedraumar (2004), Sea, say and see (2006) and Armane mine handlingar (2011). Fjell-Øygarden was published by H-press in 2008. Dale holds an MA in Literature from the University of Bergen, and has attended Skrivekunstakademiet in Hordaland. She is based at Misje, outside Bergen.

Erik J. Worsøe Eriksen was educated at Vestlandet Art Academy. He was one of the people behind Galleri Otto Plonk in Bergen (1995-1998). After that, he organised several large, independent exhibitions with Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk and Eivind Furnesvik including Naust at Øygarden (2000). Eriksen was part of the artist collective Pelikan (with Eeg-Tverbakk and Sletnes) who organised their own exhibitions and social art events including Disk at BIT Teatergarasjen (1998), Bibliotekaren at Hordaland Art Centre (1999) and I Kunstnernes Hus at Kunstnernes Hus (1999). CHROMA II is his first exhibition of his own works since Pelikan disbanded at the end of the 1990s. Eriksen is currently involved in several of his own photography and art projects, as well as a collaboration with Yngvar Larsen, Darker#2, and an international street photography project with ten different photographers from all over the world.

John Hegre is a musician and composer from Bergen. He has been working as a technician, sound designer and musician since the late 1980s. He is part of several bands and constellations of musicians including Jazkamer, Noxagt, Golden Serenades, Public Enema, Rehab, Kaptein Kaliber, Bjørn Torske Band, and Bergen Impro Storband. Hegre also works with theatre and performance. His album releases include A Nice Place to Leave (2003), Colors Don’t Clash (2006) and Ballads with Maja S. K Ratkje (2006), all on Decoder.

Johannes Heldén is a writer and artist based in Stockholm. He has published the books Burner (2003); Det Underjordiska Systemet (2005); En Maskin Av Ljus (2006); Primärdirektivet / The Prime Directive, online Afsnit P (afsnitp.dk); Bug Bomb (2007); Väljarna/The Electorate (2008), online for Bonnier Lyrik; Science Fiction (2010); Entropi (2010); and Entropi Edition (2010). As an artist he works with both sound and images, and he released the CD Title Sequence on iDEAL recordings in 2010. Heldén holds a MA in Fine Art from Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg (1999-2004). Recent solo exhibitions include The Archive at Stene Projects (2011) and Index of Lights in the Sky at Kalmar Konstmuseum (2011). He has shown previously with Volt in the form of the solo exhibitions A Better Tomorrow in Bergen (2008) and The Shape of Things to Come in Moss (2010).
http://www.johanneshelden.com

Cesilie Holck made her literary debut in 2009 with a collection of short prose entitled Norg, published by Aschehoug. Her second book, the novel Lille Hjelper, will be published in autumn 2011 (Aschehoug).

Jenny Hval is an artist and writer. She has brought out two albums under the alias Rockettothesky and her third album, Viscera, was released in 2011 under her own name. In addition to these solo projects, she works with improvisation and electronic music in the duo Nude on Sand with Håvard Volden, and the two released their first album in 2012. Hval made her literary debut with the novel ”Perlebryggeriet” (Kolon Forlag, 2009). Her second book ”Inn i ansiktet” (Oktober forlag) was published in the autumn of 2012. Together with Inger Bråtveit, Hval created the performance ”Kvit søppel” in 2011. Previous exhibitions include “Innocence is kinky” at the Henie-Onstad Art Centre (2012).
http://www.jennyhval.com

Dimitris Ioannou is an artist based in Athens. He studied Painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1994-1999), and received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in New York (2000-2002) with a scholarship from the Onassis foundation. In 2005 he participated in the Artist In Residency programme at USF Verftet, Bergen. Previous solo exhibitions include “You got A good one!”(2008) at the K44 exhibition space in Athens, ”You got A good one! (The Bergen Mix)” at Volt (2008), ”CMYK series” (2005) at the RGB studio in Athens. Selected group shows include: ”Evolution ID” (2010), Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens; “Conceptual Obsession – Obsessive Conceptualism” (2008), TinT Gallery, Thessaloniki; “Emergency Room” (2007), Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens; ”I Sighroni Elliniki Skini” (2007), Art Athina, Helexpo, Athens; “What Remains Is Future” (2006), Old Arsakeion School, Patras; “So Much… So Great” (2003), Larissa Contemporary Art Cente, Larissa; ; “20 Rooms: 20 Curators Propose 20 Young Artists” (2003) selected by Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Kappatos Gallery, St George Lycabettus Hotel in Athens; and “Pratt: Beyond the Gates” (2002), Art in General, New York
http://www.dimitrisioannou.net

Marte Johnslien is an artist educated at the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo (2005). She works on a project basis and incorporates sculpture, installation, photography and publishing in her practice. Her works have an analytical quality as she queries established notions of knowledge and history. She often uses as her point of departure artistic and architectural ideas and practices that have shaped society and the public sphere. Johnslien has held solo exhibitions at Galleri Riis in Oslo (2011) and at 0047 Oslo (2008). She has also participated in group exhibitions at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo (2008), the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Antwerp (2010), and the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork (2008). Johnslien was recently commissioned to carry out two large public art projects in Bergen: the sculpture “Blindfold” (2011) for the Gulating square and a project at the new Faculty of Odontology, which opens in the autumn of 2012.
http://www.martejohnslien.com

Cecilia Jonsson is a Swedish artist based in Bergen. She holds an MA degree from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2012) and has also participated in the MA programme ‘Nordic Sound Art’. She has previously taken part in group exhibitions at the F-Block Gallery in Bristol; the Singuhr Hörgalerie in Berlin; LiveInYourHead in Geneva; and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde. Jonsson’s work often takes the form of artistic interpretations of empirical material, inspired by the research methods used in the natural sciences. Plants, water and iron form the backdrop of many of her works, where these elements operate as figures and thematics in imagined slippages between nature and technology, environmental concerns and social culture.
http://www.ceciliajonsson.com

Stian Eide Kluge is a visual artist based in Oslo. He was educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and at the School of Visual Arts, Department for Film and Video in New York. He has been running the 1857 gallery together with Steffen Håndlykken since 2010. Recent exhibitions include ”The A Priori Echo And The Necks” at IMO in Copenhagen and the group show ”I Wish This Was A Song. Music in Contemporary Art” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. He has also shown at the Oslo venues Kunstnerforbundet, Galleri Erik Steen, 0047 and Galleri Trafo, as well as at Galerei Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam.

Knud Young Lunde is an artist whose installations are characterised by a playful approach to established meanings and commercial idioms, which he tends to undermine. He holds an MA from the Art Academy at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts (2009). He recently exhibited in Berlin and Warsaw, held a solo show at Entreé in Bergen (2010) and participated in BGO1 at the Bergen Art Museum (2010). In the spring of 2012, he will have a solo exhibition at NoPlace in Oslo. Lunde is part of the artist collective Ministry of Transport and Communications together with Aleksander Stav Lunde. Their last project consisted of an artistic intervention in an issue the journal Replikk dedicated the topic of transport.

Magnhild Øen Nordahl lives and works in Stockholm, where she began her MA at the Royal Institute of Art (KKH) in the autumn of 2012. She holds a BA degree from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2010). She has recently exhibited at Blank Projects in Cape Town; the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney, at The Armory Show in New York, at Svalbard, at Bergen Kunsthall and, most recently, at Entreé at Platform Stockholm. Øen Nordahl works predominantly with sculpture and installations. Her art projects often take as their point of departure investigations into the mechanical and aesthetic features of architecture and functional structures, such as frameworks for buildings or knots. Her most recent work deals with notions of craft and epistemology.
http://www.magnhildnordahl.com

Linda Rogn is an artist working primarily with video. She holds an MA from the Art Academy at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts (2007). Recent projects include the group exhibitions Comfortable Battleground (2010) and The Bergen Biennale II: The Next Generation at the Woodmill in London (2010), contributions to the film festivals of Dresden and Berlin, and the solo show By her side but take my left arm too at Galleri Gathe (2008). She is part of the Bergen Ateliergruppe, and has curated a number of self-initiated projects many of them as part of Prosjekt Alvøen, which she runs.

Marthe Elise Stramrud is a visual artist. She is a member of the artist collective Gruppe 11 and the shared studio community at Flaggfabrikken. She holds a BA degree from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2011), and has also studied Photography at Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg; Oslo Fotokunstskole; and Prosjektskolen Kunstskole i Oslo. Stramrud has recently participated in group exhibitions at Hobusepea in Tallinn; CC in Malmö; Akershus Art Centre; Bergen Kjøtt; de Joode & Kamutzki in Berlin, Tollbodallmenningen 39; and Sørlandsutstillingen. In 2012, she was awarded the Debutant Prize by the Norwegian Association of Art Societies for the photographic series Livingroom Poetics”. Stramrud works predominantly with photography through which she presents different sculptural compositions.
http://www.martheelise.com

Yokoland is a design studio that works across various fields of graphic design and illustration – both commissioned and self initiated work. The studio focuses on close long-term collaborations with their clients, and is known for their work with cultural clients such as the independent record label Metronomicon Audio and publishing house Flamme Forlag. Yokoland consists of Aslak Gurholt Rønsen, Martin Lundell, Espen Friberg and Thomas Nordby. The studio is situated in Oslo and Trondheim.
http://www.yokoland.com/

Monika Zawadzki is an artist working with installations, art objects and video. She is interested in social issues and inter-human relations. Her works tend to analyse extreme social attitudes resulting from the desire to dominate or to exclude. Recent solo exhibitions include Who sleeps with the dogs, wakes up with fleas (2008) and Anyone (2010) at Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. Her practice incorporates graphic design and experiments with typography, and she is the art director of DIK Fagazine. In the period 2003-2006, she directed the non-commercial, artist-run gallery ZOO in Warsaw. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Øyvind Ådland is a writer. He made his literary debut in 2001 with Konfliktritt (Aschehoug), which was followed by Møksterhele sår på dagtid Biblioteket Gasspedal) in 2003 and Problemet med de to-tre studentene (Aschehoug) in 2006.

http://www.v-o-l-t.no

Contributors:
Power Ekroth, Stian Gabrielsen, Ingvild Krogvig, Kristian Meisingset, Johanne Nordby Wernø, Beate Petersen, Kjetil Røed, Synnøve Vik

Editors:
Ketil Nergaard
Marie Nerland

Design:
Skin Designstudio

ISBN 978-82-530-3566-6
Pax Forlag AS 2012

With support from Arts Council Norway
http://www.kunstaarbok.no
Buy here: http://www.pax.no/norsk-kunstaarbok-2012.5602305-331607.html

Launch
“The Ouch Of Time”
- a lecture by Mårten Spångberg
Kunstnernes Hus 18 December 2012 8 pm

Mårten Spångberg is a performance related artist, choreographer and theoretic living and working in Stockholm. He has been active on stage as performer and creator since 1994, and has since 1999 created his own choreography’s from solos to larger scale works, which has toured internationally. He has collaborated with among others Xavier Le Roy, Christine De Smedt/Les Ballets C de la B, Jan Ritsema, Krõõt Juurak. With the architect Tor Lindstrand he initiated International Festival, an interdisciplinary practice merging architecture and choreography/performance. Since 1996 he has organized and curated festivals in Sweden and internationally. He initiated the network organisation INPEX in 2006. He has thorough experience in teaching both theory and practice. Between 2008 -2012 director of the MA program in choreography at the University of Dance in Stockholm. He has published numerous texts and edited a number of publications. In 2011 his first book “Spangbergianism” was published.

Notes on Utopia
 
Alexander Gerner, Marie Nerland, Ligia Soares

11-12-13. October 2012 at 19:00
14. October 2012 at 15:00

Project room 303
C.Sundts gt. 55, Bergen

Utopia starts with the phrase: Something is missing.
Notes on Utopia is a performance which builds a situation for reflecting on contemporary utopia, on public space and on utopian thoughts in art and life.

The performance is the second stage of an ongoing project, the first part taking place at Atelier Concorde in Lisbon in 2011. Gerner, Nerland and Soares have previously collaborated on the performances Endings for Berlin at Bekarei, Berlin (2006),  Let´s do endings again at Lydgalleriet in Bergen (2007) and Endings for Oslo at Black Box Teater/UKS in Oslo (2007).

Alexander Gerner is a German artist, playwright and theatre director based in Lisbon. He is also a researcher in Philosophy of Cognitive Sciences in several research projects on the philosophy of attention, the image, diagrammatic thinking and maps, Neuroaesthetics and Neuroethics and the cognitive foundation of the self. He is a member of the Centre of Philosophy of Science at the University of Lisbon where he recently finished his PhD on „Philosophical Investigations of Attention“ (2012). He co-edited the interdisciplinary ”Studies in Diagrammatology and Diagram Praxis” (College Publications London, 2010). In 2010 he presented a performance related to the topic of utopia: He who does not work shall not eat.

Marie Nerland is an artist and curator based in Bergen. She has been working with performance since 1999 in different collaborative projects. In 2008, she founded Volt, a curatorial project for contemporary art based in Bergen. http://www.v-o-l-t.no 

Lígia Soares is a choreographer and playwright based in Lisbon. Her work has been presented in several venues and festivals in Portugal and Europe. In 2008 she was recipient of DanceWeb Scholarship programe for contemporary dance. Her last production ”La Famiglia” was presented in Guimaraes 2012- European Capital of Culture. She is artistic director of Máquina Agradável an artistic organization founded in 2002.  http://www.maquinaagradavel.com

The project is in collaboration with BEK and is funded by Arts Council Norway and City of Bergen.

Entrance: 100,- (bring cash)
Seating is limited.

Poster: Yokoland
Photos: Thor Brødreskift

Gasspedal presenterer:

Kong Oidipus

Bergen Kretsfengsel,
Fredag 13. april klokken 15.00
Audiatur

Aud Olsen | Kong Oidipus*
Dette – nokså enkle – arbeidet startet med en samtale mellom Audun Lindholm og Arve Kleiva vinteren 2008/09. Arve Kleiva hadde ubrukt materiale liggende fra den nylig publiserte romanen Aud Olsen: På kjøkkenet* (H Press, 2008). Der er Oidipus en viktig, men lite fremhevet figur, og etter Kleivas oppfatning ble figuren heller ikke tilstrekkelig utviklet, si i omfanget av sin relevans for stoffet, navnlig spenningen mellom litteratur og eksistens i et samfunn der de fleste relasjoner er overstyrt av én økonomisk hensikt, konsentrasjonen av makt gjennom omsetningen av varer.
Kleiva hadde også lyst til å arbeide videre med et essay han* skrev for Vagant i 1995, Gustav Haarnack: Den kinesiske prinsen.* Lindholm utfordret Kleiva til å bruke materialet scenisk, se hva som kunne skje om man plasserte Oidipus-figuren på scenen og arbeidet med teksten i et kollektiv. Den foreliggende bearbeidelsen av Oidipus er tilpasset festivalen og lagt et sted mellom opplesningen og teaterforestillingen. Hva skjer med elementene i Oidipus-myten, om man forutsetter at Oidipus vet hva han gjør, når han slår ihjel sin far, gifter seg med sin mor, får barn med henne, etc.? Forestillingen forutsetter også at Oidipus’ tragedie er uforståelig – ja, meningsløs – utenfor samfunnet hans skjebne utfoldes i; poenget er i seg selv så innlysende at utsagnet grenser til tomhet. Fremføringen bygger på Sofokles’ stykke Kong Oidipus, to Sofokles-dramaer til fra denne familiefortellingen (Oidipus i Kolonos, Antigone) og andre antikke overleveringer om Oidipus-myten, dens bakgrunn. Videre er det plukket fritt fra Hölderlins, Pasolinis & Freuds Sofokles-kommentarer samt forfattere som nevnes der.

Tekst, stemme: Arve Kleiva
Dramaturgi: Marie Nerland
På scenen: Øyvind Ådland
Scenografi: Johanne Hjorthol
Produksjon: Audun Lindholm

Forestillingen er laget for AUDIATUR WASTE LAND som et kollektivt arbeid og ble til i løpende dialog mellom deltagerne. Prosjektet har mottatt midler til manuskriptutvikling fra Norsk kulturråd og støtte fra Bergen kommune - Seksjon for kunst og kultur.

Aud Olsen

* Arve Kleiva har arbeidet med et knippe psevdonymer, eller forfatternavn, eksempelvis Aud Olsen, Gustav Haarnack og Ernst Ernst – for den saks skyld Arve Kleiva. Disse navnene er en del av teksten, i enhver forstand. Fordelen med dette grepet er å strekke fiksjonen aldri så lite ut av boken, inn i språkbruken som omgir den og kontraktene som sluttes der, da ikke minst i varehandelen, eksempelvis handelen med bøker, aviser, tv, forlag og forfattere. Kleivas produksjon er samlet under paraplyen Haarnack-Archiv. Et arbeid fra Haarnack-Archiv, som tar i bruk de nevnte forfatternavnene, presenteres under festivalen på utstillingen A Print.

Video her: http://www.audiatur.no/festival/audiatur-waste-land-kong-oidipus-performance-med-tekst-av-arve-kleiva/
Foto: Katja Zimmermann og Susanne Christensen

The experiences of the art institutions
- a panel conversation

Torpedo
Kunsthall Oslo

1 March 2012

The Norwegian Art Yearbook and Torpedo invite to a panel conversation with Audun Eckhoff, Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk, Linus Elmes, Steffen Håndlykken and Randi Thommessen. The conversation moderated by Marie Nerland.

The participants represent a wide range of art institutions from artist-run places, a membership organization, private gallery to museum. They are gathered to share some of their experiences from their work with among others exhibition production and institution building. The goal is to create a conversation that cut across traditional boundaries in the art world, and that goes to the core of what it is like to work with contemporary art in Norway.

About the participants:

Audun Eckhoff is an art historian and director of The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design since 2009. Former director of the Bergen Art Museum (2002-2009) and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (1995-2002).

Per-Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk led the project Kunstneriske forstyrrelser (Artistic Interruptions) in Nordland and has curated numerous exhibitions, including Momentum 04 (with Caroline Corbetta). Director at Kunsthall Oslo.

Linus Elmes is an artist, curator and writer with a background from several artist-run projects among them ak28 and Ersta Konsthall. Director of UKS from 2009.

Steffen Håndlykken is an artist and has since 2010 run the gallery 1857 together with Stian Eide Kluge. 1857 shows work by young international artists, and emphasizes on producing new works in close collaboration with the artists.

Marie Nerland is co-editor of The Norwegian Art Yearbook (2010, 2011, 2012). Since 2008 she has run Volt in Bergen.

Randi Thommessen is trained artist and curator. She started Lautom Contemporary in 2007 in Oslo. Lautom shows Norwegian and international contemporary art and has participated in several international art fairs.

The evening is arranged by Norwegian Art Yearbook in cooperation with Torpedo.
http://www.kunstaarbok.no

MAKING IT ALL WORK
- a seminar on work, labour and art

Søren Andreasen, Isabell Lorey and Camiel van Winkel

Saturday 22 of October 2011
11.00-16.00
Bergen Public Library

How does the field of art relate to work? In an interview, Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn emphasizes how he always uses the word ‘work’ about his artistic vocation. To be an artist is to work, and in using the word ‘work’, the work of the artist is linked to other types of work in contemporary society. Hirschhorn also points to how the word ‘work’ is an integral part of the term ‘artwork’. Within the field of art, there has been a transition from focusing on the complete work of art, to its work processes. Since the 1960s, one has increasingly understood art in terms of production and work. The seminar Making It All Work revolves around work, and it will examine working methods, practices and the understanding of work in social, historical and political contexts.

The title of the seminar, Making It All Work invites numerous interpretations. One way to interpret it, is how everything is turning into work – how life is, to different extents, about work – work as your life’s work and all the different aspects of work in these senses. An alternate reading of the title, is related to how one can make everything work -make everything function in your life and in the projects you are involved in. Both these interpretations relate to the themes of the seminar and to the work of the artist.

Isabell Lorey´s lecture is titled: The Becoming Public of Work: Virtuosity and Freedom
In her lecture, Lorey follows Paolo Virno’s argument that under Post-Fordism, labour based on service, communication and affect becomes public and therefore, in a sense, political. Hannah Arendt has compared the leading artists, the virtuosos, to those who are politically active: Those who, in her view, act politically, are exposed to the presence of others. She does, however, separate productive work from the sphere of political action. Contrary to Arendt, Virno argues that the distinction between public and private implodes under Post-Fordist conditions, as does the distinction between work and the sphere of political action. Because of their ideas of freedom and autonomy, Lorey will argue that cultural producers in this development behave less political than individualistic. Very often, they inhabit a special form of governable self-precarization.

Søren Andreasen´s lecture is titled What is not Work? A meditation on the use of the metaphor work in contemporary culture and how this figure affects the understanding of aesthetic experience.

Camiel van Winkel´s lecture is titled Middle Culture: Designers – Artists – Professionals He will approach the topic of art and work via the dialectics of art and mass culture. He will specifically discuss the role of design, the applied art form that somehow seems to transcend the high/low-dichotomy and is therefore an increasingly successful model of cultural production. Van Winkel will identify the effects this is having on contemporary art – the way the primacy of design has changed the things we expect from art and artists.

Biographies:

Søren Andreasen, visual artist who works and lives in Copenhagen. His latest exhibitions include Samling Mabuse, Overgaden, Copenhagen (2011), New Age, Brændergården, Viborg (2010) and ONTOTECH, Århus Kunstbygning (2009). He is part of the artists’ collective Koncern (1989-93) and the collaborative project rasmus knud (1999-2005). He has also curated several exhibitions, among them The Soft Shields of Pleasure, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen (2008) and The Echo Show, The Tramway, Glasgow, with Lars Bang Larsen (2003). Andreasen also writes and publishes texts, among them the pamphlets QUALIA (2011) + teser og antiteser (Theses and Antitheses, 2010, self-published), the book catalogue ONTOTECH, Forlaget Århus Kunstbygning (2009), and a book made in collaboration with Lars Bang Larsen; The Critical Mass of Mediation, Idealistisk Internationale (October 2011). Teacher at Jutland Art Academy 2004-2010.

Isabell Lorey political scientist, teaches social sciences, cultural and gender studies as visiting professor at the Humboldt University Berlin and the Vienna University. From 2001-2007, she was assistant professor at Gender & Postcolonial Studies at the University of the Arts, Berlin. Lorey has published texts on feminist and political theory, and particularly: biopolitical governmentality, critical whiteness studies, political immunization, and precarization. Latest publications: Her studies on Roman struggles of order, the Plebeian, concepts of community and immunization were published in Figuren des Immunen. Elemente einer politischen Theorie at diaphanes, Zürich 2011. She co-edited Inventionen 1. Gemeinsam. Prekär. Potentia. Kon-/Disjunktion. Ereignis. Transversalität. Queere Assemblagen, ed. by Isabell Lorey, Roberto Nigro, Gerald Raunig, Zürich: diaphanes 2011 (for the English version see the issue of transversal Inventions among others, Isabell Loreys text Governmental Precarization). See also the recent issue of transversal on the world wide movements of occupation and assemblies in 2011.

Camiel van Winkel is professor of Visual Art at AKV|St. Joost (Avans University) in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. He teaches art theory at Sint-Lukas University College of Art and Design, Brussels, and is advisor at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He is the author of Moderne leegte. Over kunst en openbaarheid (1999), The Regime of Visibility (2005) and De mythe van het kunstenaarschap (2007). His forthcoming book is titled During the Exhibition the Gallery Will Be Closed. Contemporary Art and the Paradoxes of Conceptualism (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2012). His current research, in close collaboration with sociologist Pascal Gielen, focuses on the hybridization of artistic practice. He also curates the exhibition Valéry Proust Museum/White Cube Fever in Mu.ZEE Museum for modern art inOostende, Belgium (opening 26 November 2011).

The seminar takes place during the festival Meteor in Bergen from October 20th - 29th 2011.
The seminar is presented in collaboration with Bergen Public Library and BIT Teatergarasjen and is funded by Arts Council Norway and Fritt ord.

Stefan Kaegi
- conversation and artist presentation

Tuesday 15 November 2011 at 21:00 at Kafe Knøderen
BIT Teatergarasjen

An evening with Stefan Kaegi from Rimini Protokoll. Rimini Protokoll is often announced as the inventors of a new form of documentary theatre, exploring a theatre of performers who are not professional actors but experts or specialists out of their particular spheres of life – professionals of a theatre of the real world. Rimini Protokoll consists, besides Kaegi, of Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel, who in various constellations have made theater-related work, live art, pieces for radio and installations together since 1999.

“Rimini Protokoll brings real life to the stage in a way that no other theatre form has been able to. The unmistakable strength of these performances lies above all in the fact that in spite of the proximity to the persons whom they portray a rift appears between the role and the personality, and with it an awareness of the risk, that life could gain the upper hand, and theatre could lose control over itself” (from Frankfurter Rundschau).

Endings is an ongoing performance - and collaborative project where the three artists meet and work together in different cities. These meetings ends in each place in a performance that explores the theme of “endings” and the city / locality where the performance takes place. Earlier versions have been Endings for Bergen in an artist studio, Endings for Lisbon in a closed down bookstore, Endings for Aberystwyth at the Center for Performance Research in Wales and Endings for Berlin in a newly opened bakery.

With Endings the artists tries out different approaches on how to invite the audience into the room and interact with them. Thematically, they work with the fluent transition between different forms of endings and different ways of thinking what on what it can mean to finish something.

The performance is funded by Arts Council Norway, Fond for lyd og bilde and City of Bergen.

Endings is an ongoing performance - and collaborative project where the three artists meet and work together in different cities. These meetings ends in each place in a performance that explores the theme of “endings” and the city / locality where the performance takes place. Earlier versions have been Endings for Bergen in an artist studio, Endings for Lisbon in a closed down bookstore and Endings for Aberystwyth at the Center for Performance Research in Wales.

With Endings the artists tries out different approaches on how to invite the audience into the room and interact with them. Thematically, they work with the fluent transition between different forms of endings and different ways of thinking what on what it can mean to finish something.
The performance is funded by Arts Council Norway, Fond for lyd og bilde and City of Bergen.

CPR presents

JACOB WREN / MARIE NERLAND / LAURE OTTMANN AND P.M.E. (MONTRÉAL, CANADA)

Endings for Aberystwyth
Saturday 22 July, 6.30pm
The Castle Theatre, Aberystwyth

On Saturday, 22 July, CPR presents the final performance as part of its
Summer Shift 2006 - CPR’s international summer school.
Endings for Aberystwyth is an exploration of the theme of ‘endings’, questioning the
nature of performance itself and will explore familiar sights and sounds of
Aberystwyth, as well as create a uniquely challenging performance event.

Jacob, Marie and Laure have performed other versions of ‘Endings’ over the
past year in Bergen, Norway and Lisbon, Portugal.

The performance for Aberystwyth has been created in a workshop led by Jacob
Wren and Laure Ottmann of Montreal based P.M.E. and Marie Nerland for the
CPR’s Summer Shift. The 11 participants and three guest teachers have been
working over ten days researching and gathering material to perform over a
five hour period at The Castle Theatre, Aberystwyth.

The performance will last approximately five hours and the audience is free
to come and go during that time.

‘Endings for Aberystwyth’ is a further exploration of some of the themes and
techniques begun by Jacob Wren and Laure Ottmann (of Montréal based company
PME) and their collaborator, Marie Nerland. ‘Endings…’ will involve
participants as performers and collaborators - searching for ways to be with
the audience in as warm and natural a manner as possible, but at the same
time also activating a critical process (both within the performer and
within the spectator): a process that relates directly to the central
questions of theatre and performance.

Participants will undergo many complimentary levels of experience and
artistic exploration: to be in close proximity to the audience and navigate
utilizing a very high level of non-performance; to create alongside the
teachers - from scratch - a body of new material gradually teased out from
our collective reflections upon the theme, to experience how an open-ended
process of searching, where the outcome and the style of the work is never
fully decided upon, can produce startlingly refreshing results.

‘Endings for Aberystwyth’ is both an exploration of the theme of ‘endings’
and a workshop which questions many of our pre-conceptions regarding the
nature of performance itself, searching for new conceptual attitudes and
approaches for inviting an audience into a space and genuinely interacting
with them. In some ways growing out of a dissatisfaction with the
conventions of the stage, the workshop is loosely based on the premise that
it is difficult yet possible (and even necessary) to create a condition in
which both the performer and spectator are deeply engaged in a common
project and that the questions surrounding such attempts have the potential
to generate ongoing insights into why we still need performance.

CPR is grateful to Wales Arts International and the Québec Government
Office, London for financial support for this project.

Centre for Performance Research
http://www.thecpr.org.uk

display, Alexander Gerner, Håvard Pedersen

BIT Teatergarasjen
15 - 16 -17.04 2004

And we will all make a pause / a break / a siesta or concentrate on whatsoever – this childhood thing when you go to a holiday camp and the responsible tells you to shut off the lights and go to sleep and then you still talk in the dark or put your sleeping bags together and put the little lamps on to still pass the night talking / whispering.

The performance What Keeps You Awake was a collaboration between display and Alexander Gerner.
Håvard Pedersen was playing LPs during the performance. The performance consisted of video materials, texts, conversations, live telephone calls and music. The audience was sitting on sofas and madrasses. On stage there was also a tent, a hammock, a chocolate cake and a bar.

The performance was co-produced by BIT Teatergarasjen and supported by City of Bergen.

Photos: Thor Brødreskift

Ferdsskriveren is a box containing two anthologes and a CD made to the 20th anniversary of BIT Teatergarasjen
The box contains: 

Løft
- an anthology of texts by the writers Dag Solstad, Cecilie Løveid, Øyvind Berg, Pedro Carmona-Alvarez, Sverre Knudsen, Ragnar Hovland, Ingri Lønnebotn, Gunnhild Øyehaug, Lars Ramslie, Fanny Holmin, Nora Simonhjell, Finn Iunker, Erling Kittelsen, Helga G. Eriksen, Silje Vethal, Harald Rosenløw Eeg, Rolf Enger, Matt Burt, Yngve Pedersen, Trude Marstein, Nils-Øivind Haagensen.
Editors: Helga G.Eriksen, Marie Nerland og Lars Ramslie

Risiko
- an anthology with new-commisioned texts by Danjel Andersson, Knut Ove Arntzen, Tim Etchells, Christine Peters, Arnd Wesemann, Jacob Wren
The anthology also has an overview of all performances and projects that have been arranged by BIT Teatergarasjen until 2003.
Editors: Sven Åge Birkeland, Marie Nerland

Kompressor
- CD with electronic music
Tracks by TeeBee, Lupo, Skolpender, Kahuun, Neural Network, David Brown, Polar, Mushroom, Syklon, Information, Kaptain Kaliber
The CD is a documentation of the electronic music scene in Bergen from about 1993 to 2003, with a rich 16-page CD-cover with history and flyers.
Kompressor is a tribute to all those who have helped to make Bergen a good place to be in the past decade - to club- and party organizers, flyer designers and DJs.
Collected by Anders Gogstad, Marie Nerland, Thomas Paulsen, Mikal Telle
Mastered by Jørgen Træen/Duper.

The title Ferdsskriveren is the tachograph or “black box” that records everything that happens in the cockpit during a flight. These are boxes that digitally records everything that happens. The idea of the publication is to create a different kind of documentation where some themes are voyage; risk, landing, take off, turbulence and to be on the way. Ferdsskriveren enables fast forward and rewind, extract fragments and several voices.

Ferdsskriveren (BIT Teatergarasjen, 2003)
ISBN 82-996678-0-1
Editor: Marie Nerland  
Design fragment design
Press Bodoni Hus
The box is funded by Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen, Fond for lyd og bilde, Bergen Riksmålsforenings Fond, Bergens Tidende og SpareBank1 Vest.

display, Håvard Pedersen,  Lars Ramslie. Torunn Skjelland

Hordaland kunstsenter
5 - 6 Desember 2003
at 20.00

I get an idea, and always when I get the idea immediately, I panic from it. Then I know that it is the right thing to do. If I don’t panic from it I don’t bother to do it. What you are afraid of is exactly what you are supposed to do. Only that makes me jump to another pattern, jump to another experience

The performance Fall was a collaboration between display, the musician Håvard Pedersen, the writer Lars Ramslie and the visual artist Torunn Skjelland. The wrestlers Alexander Schive and Øyvind Kandal were also participating.
The performance consisted of three large projections, texts, acts and live electronic music.

The performance was in collaboration with HKS and Bergen Atletklubb.
It was co-producec by BEK - Bergen Center for Electronic Art and supported by Arts Council Norway and City of Bergen.

http://display.bek.no

DISPLAY + ALEXANDER GERNER + FOKUDA + ROY LERVÅG

An experiment: sit down and try to think about all the friends you have had. Start with the friends you have now, write down their names. And then think back. Write down the friends from earlier, people you have lost contact with, people who are no longer your friends, people you started to dislike, people who will always be your friend. Make a map of your friends, who you met through whom, connections, friends of you that became friends through you, that became better friends than you ever were. Some people have almost the same friends all their lives. When they meet they don’t really have to talk, they know everything, they remember each other being children.

When I meet people I have an instinct feeling of who will become a friend. Like sitting next to a stranger in a bus, and getting this feeling that he will become your best friend for a while. And just to say something you ask where the bus goes, even if you have taken the same bus several times before. And then when you get off the bus he is standing there waiting for you.

display and Gerner were both participating at the urban research platform SONDE at the biennale Artgenda 2002 in Hamburg. After the biennale we started to create a new project together. We first started with links between Norway and Portugal and one of the most important links is the bacalao. Bacalao used to be food everyone in Portugal could afford - it was called fiel amigo which means a friend that can be trusted. From there our project developed into a performance about friendship.

The performance is a traveling logbook (stories, videomaterial, interviews, photos) and a memory space of personal links/friendships. It is based on video (interviews, documentations about friends), live electronic music by Fokuda, texts (e.g. pop-songlyrics, sayings) and minimal/concentrated stories about how someone became a friend, how people make part of your own history, how some others never will, about all the strangers you only meet for a short time, but who have stayed in your memory and the friends you have lost due to some reason or other over the years. The logbook is an ongoing process under development, growing and changing, where ever the performance is presented.

The atmosphere Fiel Amigo creates is like a workshop or studio. Fragments of memory material like stories and photographs are put on the walls or on the tables, as well as books and papers where people can draw maps of their friends and write down stories about friends and meetings with strangers, which we collect afterwards or integrate into the performance. Fiel Amigo always asks the local people about friendship before the presentations and include a video-documentation of this within the performance. The performance artist & chef Roy Lervåg takes part in the performance - serving a bacalao dish to the audience.

The theatregroup display was established in Bergen in 1999 and has done several art and performance projects both in theater venues and galleries. Members of display are Marius E. Hauge og Marie Nerland. http://www.bek.no/display

Alexander Gerner started writing text for theatre and as a director in 1997 with his piece Trance. In 1998 he won the dance/theatre price in Munich for the internet- live performance Zap through my life. He lives and works as a video and performance artist in Lisbon and has directed and taken part in projects at Kampnagel Hamburg, Moussonturm Frankfurt, Neues Theater/ I-camp München and the International Theaterfestival SPIELART 99 where he showed his piece CUT. His two latest projects 10 basic things and Tragedy 0:1 was shown in Lisbon.

Håvard Pedersen aka fokuda has made the music in the performance. He has earlier as a member of the electronica trio male:female created music to two of displays earlier projects Lost highlights og 24 songs.

Roy Lervåg, chef and performance artist based in Bergen.

Fiel Amigo - A Friend That Can Be Trusted was first shown at the Galery 3.14 in Bergen (Norway) on April 23rd and 24th, 2003. The performance was presented later in Lisbon on July 16th and 17th 2003, and at the JUNGE HUNDE festival Mladi Levi at Bunker in Ljubljana, august 26th and 27th the same year. It was also presented at the festival BASTARD at Teaterhuset Avantgarden in Trondheim, March 28th, 2004.

Fiel Amigo is co- produced by BEK, Bergen Centre for Electronic Art and supported by Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen and UD.

LOST HIGHLIGHTS

DISPLAY + MALE:FEMALE

Meteorfestivalen
BIT Teatergarasjen
2 - 3 October 2001

Lost highlights was a performance based on both edited, non-edited performance material and ideas for performances. Action, texts and videomaterial was mixed with live electronic music by male:female. The performance took place in a closed down store at Nøstet in Bergen. The project was a part of the theatrefestival Meteor, BIT Teatergarasjen and part of the opening arrangement of the festival of contemporary art, Bergart.
The performance was co-produced by BIT Teatergarasjen and BEK, Bergen Center for Elektronic Art. The project was financially supported by City of Bergen.