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.

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.

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

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

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.