Visitors 2016

Damir Avdagic is an interdisciplinary artist whose artistic practice is based in performance, text and video. His works are often rooted in psychoanalytical theory in their investigation into historical memory and identity including inter-generational transmission of war related trauma. By collecting and performing everyday dialogues which are circumscribed by the same historical event, Avdagic reflects on how this history is passed (consciously or unconsciously) to the next generation and the effects it bears on cultural identity, nationality and the self. The historical background for the work is the civil war in Ex-Yugoslavia (1991–95).

Damir Avdagic is educated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and holds an MFA from The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has exhibited extensively, including at Another Space Copenhagen, KALA Art Institute Berkeley, Fotogalleriet Oslo, Entree Galleri Bergen among others. He is the recipient of several grants and prizes, including The Fulbright Scholarship, NORAM scholarship (Norway-America Foundation) and BKH’s Photo Art Prize.

Anne Szefer Karlsen is a curator, writer and editor. She has conceived of several exhibitions, publications, seminars and lecture series, and her interests are in artistic and curatorial collaborations as well as developing the language that surrounds art productions of today, linguistically, spatially and structurally. Exhibitions curated and publication projects edited by Szefer Karlsen will generally host an international roster of artists and other contributors. She has taken on a number of positions of trust within the Norwegian art context and is increasingly invited to speak on contemporary art at home as well as internationally. She is teaching and lecturing in formal and informal education, and is currently Associate Professor for MA Curatorial Practice at Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2015-2021). She was Director of Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen, Norway (2008-2014).

Szefer Karlsen was curator for The Norwegian Sculpture Biennale 2015 entitled 'Art Belongs to Those Who See it' at the Vigeland Museum in Oslo; curator for Lofoten International Art Festival ­ LIAF 2013 (with Bassam el Baroni and Eva González-Sancho) entitled 'Just what is it that makes today so familiar, so uneasy?' and Associate Curator for Research and Encounters for Biennale Bénin 2012: ­ 'Inventer le monde: l'artiste citoyen' (artistic director: Abdellah Karroum).

Szefer Karlsen's writing has appeared in journals such as Afterall, ­ A journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Billedkunst, Kunstjournalen B-post, kunstkritikk.no, as well as in anthologies such as Condition Report (ed. Koyo Kouoh, Hatje Cantz, 2013) and Making Biennials in Contemporary Times (eds. Galit Eilat et. al., Biennial Foundation/ICCo ­ Instituto de Cultura Contemporânea, 2015). She is series editor for Dublett, a book series featuring artists works through anthologies and artists books (Hordaland Art Centre, 2012-2016). She was co-editor of Self-Organised (with Stine Hebert, Open Editions/Hordaland Art Centre, 2013) and Localisert/Localised (with Arne Skaug Olsen and Morten Kvamme, Ctrl+Z Publishing, 2009).