Visitors 2017

Sjur Eide Aas (b. 1989, Stavanger, Norway) lives and works in Gjerstad, Norway. He holds a BFA from The Academy of Fine Art in Trondheim and graduated with an MFA from The Academy of Art and Design in Bergen in 2017. Previous exhibitions include: It´s already late, Overlyssalen, Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo; Omississimo (group exhibition) at Cavalo Galeria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; At Hermit Street Metro Entrance, Entrée Galleri, Bergen; The Miracle of the Burning Bush, Was All in Your Head, Noplace, Oslo.

Sketches and drawings are often the starting point of his work, dealing with themes like absence, chaos theory, time, and space. In his installations he attempts to bring out poetical qualities from everyday observations, events, and phenomena, conveying a curiosity about physical laws, and how everything is connected, in particular; how absence can make something even more present. Also characteristic of his work is a feeling of displacement.

Duy Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Norwegian artist. He explores diasporic memories and how they affect personal and collective experiences, often with an inward gaze, and a poetic voice. His practice touches upon issues of cultural identity and mental health. Duy looks at his process as a reflection of his internal mind, rather than the documentation of the outside world. Through his work, he aims to rewrite and archive immigrant stories, while raising awareness of mental health issues faced by the Asian diaspora.

Duy has been exhibited both nationally and abroad, including at Høstutstillingen (Oslo), Østlandsutstillingen (Drammen), Liquida Photo Festival (Turin), Spinnerei Autumn Gallery Tour (Leipzig), Kösk Gallery (Oslo), Karmøy Kunstforening (Karmøy), PH21 Gallery (Budapest), 706 Youth Space (Beijing), and more. He was selected for Fresh Eyes in 2022 by Gup Magazine. In 2024 he will hold his first solo exhibition in Oslo at Fotografiens Hus.

Knut Ivar Aaser (born 1986, Oslo) received his education from National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo, Kungliga Konsthögskolan Stockholm, and Akademie der Bildenden Künste München. His works have been exhibited at various artist-run spaces and galleries both nationally and abroad. Including exhibitions at Santolarosa (Oslo), Felix Gaudlitz (Vienna), VI,VII (Oslo), Caravan (Oslo), Landings Project Space (Vestfossen), Independent Regence (Brussels), Anat Ebgi (Los Angeles), Tbilisi Center of Contemporary Art, (Georgia) and Kunsthall Stavanger, (Stavanger).

Nicole Rafiki is a transdisciplinary, reasearch-based artist. Her work revolves around the construction and de-construction stereotypical depiction of spaces, contexts, identities, and the people who are affected by Global Migration. Rafiki currently lives and works in Oslo, Norway.

Sara Rönnbäck is an interdiciplinary artists who´s works move between textiles, sculpture, and installation. Rönnbäck works with performative sculptures where the relationship between time, body and space is central.

Rönnbäck holds a MFA from National Academy of Fine Art Oslo (2015). Previous exhibitions include NoPlace; Oslo, Cosmoscow; Moscow, Kurant; Tromsø and Röhsska; Gothenburg. Since 2015 she has worked together with Daniel Slåttnes on the project Conversation between Bodies, which has been shown in various formats at, among others, BOA and ANX; Oslo, the Kunstmuseet; Nord-Trønderlag, and Aldea; Bergen. Together with Slåttnes, she has also started the Hildelund Art Festival, which returns every summer in Västra Ämtervik.

Upcoming exhibitions include Galerie im Körnerpark; Berlin, Oppland Art Center; Lillehammer, Rackstadmuseet; Arvika, Arteriet; Krisitansand, Open Out; Tromsø and Kongsvinger Kunstforening in 2020. As well as RAM Gallery, Oslo and Tree Talks, Oslo in 2021.

Kaja Leijon. Recent exhibitions include the solo shows 'Dark Haven' at Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2017); 'Altro Mondo' at Space 4235, Genova (2016); and 'Another World' at MELK Gallery, Oslo (2015). Her work has been presented at Kunsthalle Mainz; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Galleria Muratcentoventidue Artecontemporanea, Bari; and Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. Leijon holds a degree from the National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo.
The last decade Kaja Leijon has divided her artistic practice into two entities; film and photography. Her work aspires towards a plausible fictional universe, though the premise of the linear and reliable narrative is vaguely destabilised by a candid approach to visual anecdotes. Her movies often insinuate questions concerning the human condition, where existential problems like alienation, ineptitude and loneliness are epitomised. Her photographs illuminate the neglected and omitted, functioning as a harbour and lawyer for the allure of the seemingly riven. These elements and vistas, like the human fates she describes in her movies, inhabits universal qualities momentous in their essence. They are poetry manifested as photographs, balancing on the fine line of potential failure, seeking shelter in fragility.

Zahra Rashid works mainly with drawing, printmaking and installations. Lately, she has been practising multiple representations of objects through different mediums. Rashid earned a BA in Visual Communication from Tehran University of Art in 2012 and completed her MFA studies in Medium and Material Based Art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2015.

Emilija Škarnulytės work consists of a series of politically active visions, in which she investigates reality with a poetic approach. Her films look into geological ungrounding processes, invisible architectures and larger systems of power. Škarnulytė holds BA from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, Italy, and an MA from Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art in Tromsø, Norway.
Her films have been screened in various International Art events and Film festivals such as La Biennale di Venezia - 15th International Architecture Exhibition (2016, Italy); International Rotterdam Film Festival (The Netherlands, 2015); Manifesta 10 (Russia, 2014), 31st Sao Paulo Biennial (Brazil, 2014); Pompidou Film Festival Hors Pistes (France, 2014); and International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany, 2013).

Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson. His praxis includes a rich juxtaposition of photography, sculpture, curating and publishing in no particular order. In 2009 he graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig with a diploma in visual arts. During recent years his works and artist’s books have been presented widely in galleries, art fairs and project spaces such as Oslo Kunstforening (Oslo); Bruch & Dallas (Cologne, Germany); MELK (Oslo); Fotogalleriet (Oslo); Kunstraum D21 (Leipzig, Germany); Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL, USA); the Vigeland Museum (Oslo); and New Shelter Plan (Copenhagen, Denmark).

Bodil Furu is an artist working with documentary filmmaking where abiding humanistic questions meet current concerns of globalization and the mediation of reality. In her film ‘we meet people who reflect upon their role and significance in the society they are part of – people with a vastness of different stories and cultural backgrounds’, presented as an ongoing study of the way in which reality is formulated and represented. Furu's work has been presented at the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); the Lubumbashi Biennale 2013, Lubumbashi; the Democratic Republic of Congo; Beaconsfield Contemporary Art, London, UK (2012); Kunsthall Oslo (2012); Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø, Norway (2012); Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, Germany (2012); The MIT List Visual Arts Center (2010); the Festival International de Film et Video de Création, Beirut, Lebanon (2008); 'Documentary Fortnight Expanded' at MoMA, New York, NY, USA (2007); The 10th Istanbul Biennale, Turkey (2007) and the Busan Biennale (2006). Furu holds a MA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Hans Kristian Borchgrevink Hansen is a visual artist whose concern is to map specific geographical areas, by making use of materials and discoveries collected from the street. Debris from the pavement and found objects become an image of the city's visual undercurrents and with their indeterminate and abstract forms are reminiscent of diminished modernist sculptures. Borchgrevink Hansen holds an MA from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts (KHiB) and a BA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO).

Jumana Manna holds an MA in Aesthetics and Politics from CalArts, Los Angeles, CA, USA and a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway. Working primarily with video and sculpture, Manna explores the construction of identity in relation to historical narratives and uncertain states of contemporary communities. In her sculptural practice, she employs a language of minimalism and abstraction to reformulate familiar objects into a state of ambiguity, navigating between negation and seduction. In 2012, Manna was awarded the Young Palestinian Artist of the Year Award sponsored by the A. M. Qattan Foundation for her short film A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade).

In Linn Pedersen's photographic work, the documentary merges with poetry in depictions of discarded consumer goods, landscape sceneries, constructions and human figures demonstratively turned away from the camera. The images are examinations of the unstable border between the common and the idealised, where atmospheric conditions, emotional projections and contemporary cultural phenomena taint the motifs. 'De innbygde' in 2010 at Maria Veie Gallery was her first solo show in Norway, which included photography, sculpture, collage and video/film as well as the artist book Stub (Lord Jim Publishing). Other recent exhibitions include 'Scandinavian Forest', Akershus Kunstnersenter, Lillestrøm, Norway (2011); 'X Artworks in a straight line (Seeking the perfect sphere)', CRISP, London, UK (2010) and 'Weird Science', Waterside project space, London (2010). She holds a BA from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Bergen, Norway and an MA from Central Saint Martins in London. Pedersen was the curator of LIAF 2011 (Lofoten International Art Festival, Lofoten, Norway) together with Thora Dolven Balke.

Stian Ådlandsvik graduated in 2006 and holds a degree from HfBK in Hamburg and the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo. Through an interplay of historical fact and artistic expression Stian Ådlandsvik maps up unusual connections in international trade and production systems questioning their organisational form and examining their infliction on society. He processes historical and contemporary events and objects, which he evaluates and re-contextualises in the form of drawings, photographs and sculptures. Recent exhibitions include 'Unfinished Business', Waterside Project Space, London, UK, 'The Barentz Triennale', Oslo/Tromsø, Norway/Rovaniemi, Finland/Helsinki, Finland/Murmansk, Russia/Moscow, Russia, The Drawing Biennale 2010, Moss, Norway, and 'W17', Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo with Lutz-Rainer Müller.

Ane Mette Hol studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and the Stockholm University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in the period 2001–2006, and has exhibited widely in Norway and internationally. In 2011 she was awarded the prestigeous Statoil Art Award. Her work is represented at the public collections of the Norwegian National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, SKMU Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Trondheim Kunstmuseum and at the Centre Pompidou in Paris among others. Hol’s work focuses on the relationship between original and reproduction. She works conceptually with drawing, and it results in two- and three-dimensional drawings, animations and sound installation. Her reproductions are often materials or waste after the production of art works and exhibitions that infiltrates the context of the exhibition.

Ane Graff graduated from Vestlandet Art Academy, Bergen, Norway in 2004. She has been an artist-in-residence at Platform China, Beijing, China (2010), Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2009), and Berlin Mitte, Berlin (2006). Solo exhibitions include 'The Aforementioned Lack of Clarity' (2010), Landings Project Space, Vestfossen, Norway, 'Patches of Standing Water' (2010), Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, 'Fall Into Matter', STANDARD (OSLO) (2007), Oslo, Norway and 'The White Work' (2006), No. 5, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway. At the core of Graff's work is an investigation into the nature of matter. She examines the surface and structure of organic mass. The 2009 exhibition 'SLIDING' at Bethanien Künstlerhaus, Berlin, saw Graff continuing this examination into the concepts of molecular diffusion and particle decay. Graff's drawings and sculptures share a clear interest in the science of materials, the materials diffusion and drift...

Martin Skauen bases his artistic practice in drawing, video, and music. Interested in the depiction of humanity and the notion of redemption, Skauen often stages situations through the use of metaphor and the interpretation of inner and outer worlds, reflecting on cultures in despair that evolve into fanaticism. Skauen was also the former curator of the artspace Subcomandante.

Tom Sandberg was selected based on his contributions in the field of photography and his interest to continue to develop his work. As Sandberg wrote, "since the 1970s, I have been exploring the inherent qualities of the photographic language. Departing from the subject matter of the portrait, I have through titantic abstractions and unstaged visual reality been interested in the increasing limits of the photograph with an authenticity regarding the medium. With visual economy and a profound interest in complex reality, I have tried to address ambiguous surfaces and visual paradoxes that attract my eye to explore the possibilities of the photographic image."

Jannicke Låker (b.1968 in Drammen, Norway, lives and works in Berlin, Germany) is a video artist known for her explicit treatment of taboos such as shame, guilt, immodesty and mental abuse. She has been presenting her works internationally. Selected venues include Nordic Panarama 2011, Århus, Denmark; Lilith Performance Event 2011 Malmö, Sweden; Norwegian Short Film Festival, Grimstad, Norway (2011); The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel (2010); International Women's Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2010); International Competition South by SouthWest, Austin, Texas, USA (2009) and Festival International de Film et Video de Creation, Beirut, Lebanon (2008).

Gardar Eide Einarsson makes works that uses a particular stylistic approach to highly charged source material. He works in a range of media from painting to text works and from light boxes to installation. Gardar Eide Einarsson has had solo exhibitions at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2010); Frankfurter Kunstverein (2007); Sorry, We're Closed, Brussels, Belgium (2007), Nils Stærk Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2006), Team Gallery, New York, USA (2005) and Marres Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Maastricht, The Netherlands (2004). His work has been exhibited at venues such as P.S.1., New York, USA; Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (both 2006); CCA Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland; Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Turkey (both 2005); Malmö Art Museum, Malmö, Sweden (2004); Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2003); and Casino Luxembourg Forum d'Art Contemporain, Luxembourg (2001). The artist is currently exhibiting within the 17th Biennale of Sydney - 'The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age'.