Sam Williams

Sam Williams (b. 1985, Essex, UK) currently lives and works in London, where he studied MA Sculpture and Moving Image at the Royal College of Art.

Sam has exhibited and screened nationally and internationally at institutions including Estuary 2016: Points of Departure (alongside artists including John Akomfrah and Adam Chodzko, curated by Gareth Evans and Sue Jones) Focal Point Gallery (Southend), ONCA (Brighton), Outpost (Norwich), Baltic39 (Newcastle), Independent Dance, Sadler’s Wells, V&A, Lychee One, Tate Britain and Jerwood Space (London); Fragment Gallery (Moscow) and Korai Project Space (Cyprus).

He was awarded the RCA residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2015), the Relax Digital Commission (2016) and the Stuart Croft Foundation Award (2017). In 2018 he received an Artist Network Professional Development Bursary to organise a series of choreographic workshops for non-dance artists, and was also artist in residence at ArtHouse (Jersey) and JOYA Arte + Ecología (Almería).

As part of the audio-visual group Emptyset he has performed internationally at institutions including BOZAR (Brussels), Arnolfini, Spike Island (Bristol), La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris) Kunsthalle Zürich and Kraftwerk (Berlin).

For several years prior to her passing, Sam was a close collaborator with the seminal British choreographer Rosemary Butcher MBE. Together they showed work at The Place (London), Nottingham Contemporary and Akademie der Künste (Berlin). Sam is a founding trustee of the Rosemary Butcher Foundation and will work with her extensive archive towards a gallery retrospective.

Image 1: until they feel – ahead of them – a barrier (2016), film still

Image 2, 3: the actual structure is the material (2018) two channel film installation, film still

Image 4: here and not (2017) two channel film installation collaboration with Joe Moran, film still

Jessica Williams

Jessica Williams (b. 1986, US/NO) is an Oslo-based artist who works freely within the realms of publishing, photography, text, and new media. She holds a BFA from the Cooper Union in New York City (2008) and a MFA from the National Academy of Art, Oslo (2014). Her working methods echo those of a hunter gatherer: collecting objects (both physical and metaphysical) that stand in as metaphors for intangible, shared feelings and experiences. The power of language and everyday physicality in the increasingly digital world are constant themes.

Between 2011-2014, she was the driving force behind the small, yet internationally recognized artists' publisher North, South, East, West – NSEW for short. Since 2012, she has regularly given talks and held workshops related to self-publishing and Risograph printing. In 2016, she started producing printed works under the moniker Hverdag Books and in 2018 she co-founded the Norwegian Risograph Society.

Williams' work has been exhibited widely over the past decade, notably at Good Press, Glasgow (solo); KRETS, Malmö (solo); High Tide, Philadelphia (two-person); The New Museum, New York City; Art in General, New York City; Capricious Space, Brooklyn; Open Space, Baltimore, among others. She has also had solo exhibitions in Oslo, Bergen, Barcelona, and Austin, Texas.

Ahmed Umar

Ahmed Umar (1988) is a Norwegian/Sudanese cross-diciplinary artist based in Oslo. He came to Norway as a politcial refugee in 2008. In 2016 he received an MFA in Medium and Material-based Arts from  the department of Ceramic Arts at the National Academy of the Arts, Oslo (KHiO).

Since his graduation, Umar has exhibited in several galleries and museums, both nationally and internationally including; FORMAT, Kunstnerforbundet, Kunstnernes Hus, Museum of Cultural History (Oslo), and Kunsthall Oslo. In 2017, Umar won the Debutante prize for his installation Hijab (Annual protection) at the Norwegian Annual Art and Craft exhibition. His work have been collected by institutions such as Drammen Museum of Art and Cultural History, and Oslo Municipality Art Collection. He also is a board member of Oslo Open art festival.

Kim Svensson

Kim Svensson (1995, Sweden) lives and works in Oslo where he currently studies Fine Art at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. His works incorporates personal experiences, literary and historical references to engage with the subjects of representation and language. Often using the intricate image-text relationship as a conceptual framework, to convey narratives and/or scenarios in the minds of the encounters. He works with installation, photography, publishing and does occasional readings.

Stephanie Von Spreter

Stephanie von Spreter is a freelance curator based in Oslo. She has served as the director of Fotogalleriet, Oslo, between 2011 and May 2018. In this position she has curated a large number of exhibitions and seminars with a focus on contemporary camera-based art. In her position she also initiated international collaborations with partner institutions in the Nordic and other European countries and set up a special educational programme with a focus on photography. Von Spreter is the co-founder/co-owner of the first exhibition guide for contemporary art in Oslo, U.F.O. (ufoguide.no).

Before moving to Norway, Stephanie von Spreter served as project manager for various large exhibitions and projects, including the 4th and 5th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. She was assistant curator at the 50. Biennale di Venezia (The Structure of Survival) and curatorial assistant at Documenta11 in Kassel.

Images: Installation documentation from a selection of exhibitions curated by Stephanie Von Spreter

Shweta Sharma

Shweta Sharma a.k.a Betty (b.1988, IND) is a fashion editor and costumier based in Mumbai. She holds a bachelors degree in Fashion Communication from National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai. She has styled for various television networks like TLC, MTV and Discovery Networks and designed costumes and characters for movies and ad films. Using styling and costume design as a way of story-telling and cultural gate-keeping, she has collaborated with publications including; Vogue India, Femina and Harper’s Bazaar on fashion features and editorials.

She has been working on a sartorial and spatial documentation series - meeting women through Instagram and travelling to Liguria, Berlin, New York, Oakland, and London. In 2017, after doing a  Contemporary Fine Arts Intensive course at Central Saint Martins London, she developed a photographic series with a women’s Cricket ball as a starting point. She teaches Advanced Fashion Styling to undergraduate students of Fashion Communication at NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology, India).

Image 1: 'Victoria' for Jade. Styling and Photo by Shweta Sharma
Image 2: 'Warrior Woman' an fashion feature for Harper's Bazaar India. Photo by Aneev Rao, courtery Harper's Bazaar India
Image 3: 'Ophelia' for Vogue India, Sep 2016. A costume design project to create a costume for a modern day Shakespeare heroine. Image Courtesy : Vogue India
Image 4: Shweta Sharma for NorBlack NorWhite from 'Holi Jouvert' Series. Image Courtesy: NorBlack NorWhite

Sayed Sattar Hasan

Sayed Sattar Hasan is a British born artist and Goldsmiths, MA, graduate (2009) currently based in Oslo, Norway. Hasan uses a variety of mediums from lens-based media to sculptural installation, and describes himself as a process- based artist.

His practice explores notions of tradition, heritage and belonging and how they are continually subject to change. Hasan often produces autobiographical narratives, based on his relationships with people, places and belief systems, and looks to express the fragility, humour and complexity of everyday life in his work. Influenced by his mixed-race identity, Hasan likes to negotiate tensions drawn by cultural and historical lines by embracing identity as a hybrid condition and expressing himself in unorthodox ways.

Hasan has had solo shows at Stephen Lawrence Gallery, UK (2017), New Art Exchange, UK (2016) and NN Contemporary, UK (2015)., and his work has appeared in international art and photography festivals such as 2nd Changjiang, Video and Photography Biennale, China (2017), EM Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).

He has produced several public installations; Southbank Centre, London, UK (Alchemy, 2017) and Heathrow Terminal 5 (2012) and participated on international artist residency programmes at the National College of Art, Lahore, Pakistan (2014) and The Baltic residency exchange program between the UK and South Korea (2018).

Images from 'My Granddad's Car', a collaborative project by Sayed Sattar Hasan and Karl Ohiri (2016).

Patricia Sandonis

Patricia Sandonis is a conceptual artist based in Berlin. She studied fine arts in the Complutense University UCM, Madrid (2007) where she received an exchange scholarship for the FH for design in Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany. A scholarship from the sculpture Park at Universal Museum Joanneum was the starting point of her interest for art in the public realm - now present in most of her works. She holds a Master in Art in Context from the UdK University in Berlin (2014).

Her artistic works has been shown in art institutions including Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid in Spain, Palazzo Ducale in Genova, SBK in Berlin, Heidelberger Kunstverein and Salzamnt in Linz. In 2016 she was invited to Villa Massimo in Rome, for a residency where she started the visual research for the artistic work she currently producing which relates to the question of how the unilateral narration of history can influence the perception of places that could be differently perceived if history would have included missing elements. Sandonis views her work as research on visual mechanisms to use on the development of the next generation monuments that will influence the collective memory of the future.

Sandonis's participation in residency eleven, Monumental—Temporal has been made possible due to kind support from the Embassy of Spain.

Amina Sahan

Amina Sahan is an artist with Iraqi and Norwegian background, based in Oslo, Norway. She is educated as an art teacher (Bachelorś Program Specialized Teacher Training in Design, Arts and Crafts, Masterś Program in Visual and Performing Arts: Art and Design Education at Oslo and Akershus University College) and has worked both as a teacher and an artist in the last 4 years.

Sahan is inspired by ongoing debates concerning multiculturalism, diversity and freedom of speech. Working primarily with painting, but also drawing and mixed media, her work concentrates on contrasts in both the content it depicts and its materiality.

In 2016 she wrote her Master thesis in Arts and Design Education on the relationship multicultural youth in Oslo have with visual art. She has developed this topic throughout her artistic career and as an activist, using exhibitions, lectures and the media. Her intention is to make art available in public space, and relatable to the multicultural youth of Oslo.

Sahan has exhibited in various arenas in Norway, Sweden and New York. Both in galleries and urban spaces.

Ella Heidi Sand

Ella Heidi Sand (b. 1957) studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, graduating in 1984, with further studies at the State University of New York, USA. She has participated in exhibitions both in Norway and abroad, and has held several solo exhibitions. She is a member of the art collective The Archive.

Sand has coordinated a number of jewelry exhibitions abroad, and has had several assignments as an art consultant for KORO (Public Art Norway). For 7 years she was the director of RAM gallery in Oslo. From 2006 -2013 she was a professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Oslo (KHiO) where she was Head of the Department for Metalwork and Jewellery.

Permanent collections include: The Norwegian Council of Culture, The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SKMU Art Museum Kristiansand, The Museum of Applied Art in Oslo, Vestlandske Museum of Applied Art in Bergen and Nordenfjeldske Museum of Applied Art in Trondheim.

Image 1: Displacement. Necklace; brass, nylon thread. Photo by Sveinung Bråthen

Image 2: Who Cares. Necklace; silver, copper, plastic covered steel, nylon thread. Photo by Elsie-Ann Hochlin

Image 3: Empty Diamonds. Necklaces; silver, nylon thread. Photo by Øyvind Suul

Image 4: Powder Necklace; woman facial soft cotton sponge powder puff pads, copper. Photo by Elsie-Ann Hochlin

Mallika Roy

Mallika Roy (b. 1991, Chicago, USA) is a diasporic artist who facilitates open sites of creative education. Her guiding belief is that alternative communications for, amongst, and on behalf of dispossessed and alienated peoples can serve to disrupt and re-imagine the political economy. She synthesizes critical theory, art, ethnographies, and other research and presents them in publicly accessible forms like websites, graphic design, fashion and adornment, curriculum, workshops, and social media.

Mallika’s framework for understanding social change has been primarily informed by her BA in International Studies and Urban Studies from the University of Michigan, the Center for Political Education’s community course on Marxist thought, Movement Generation’s A Just Transition Zine, and her upbringing in Eastern philosophy. Her work is constantly challenged and reinvigorated by the youth she has partnered with in Detroit and San Francisco since 2012.

Aleyda Rocha

Based in Mexico, Aleyda Rocha's practice is focuses on data ethnography, social impact design and educational technology. She is interested in how to understand, think about, and interact with data - particularly, how we can make data experiences that are aesthetic, tangible and consider all of our senses.

Rocha graduated from Monterrey Center for Higher Learning of Design’s Digital Art Program. She currently researching how safety policies and violent events influence gender identity and garment in Mexico. The project traces how, from the post-revolution war, the identity of Mexican men have been dictated by the constant state of ferocity.

She is a founding member of RevoltosasMX – a non-profit dedicated to generate speeches and narratives that challenge the existing power dynamics at workplace in order to push forward gender equality in Mexico.

Identifying as a curious wanderer, Rocha has navigated industries including technology, advertising and public sector innovation. She spent two years as Creative Program Manager at Google, developing groundbreaking digital projects in Latin America with the goal of leveraging the power of technology for both users and brands.

Catriona Robertson

Catriona Robertson is a sculptor based in London. She holds a BAFA (Hons) from Central Saint Martins, London (2010) and forthcoming MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London (2019). Catriona also works as a Technician in 3D fabrication at Central Saint Martins, London teaching students at Foundation, BA and MA level.

The making and un-making process is an integral part of her sculpture, working with constructive materials and some found objects to create sculptural assemblages that have an architectural resemblance with a raw sense of formation. Drawing from the in-between moment that may be overlooked at first glance, her work evokes performativity in a solid form; the potential state in which there is an element of chance or possible destruction. Her sculptures create an opposition of material and surface – forming tension and fragility, whilst questioning the permanence of the material against traditional sculptural practices.

Catriona was recently artist-in-residence at the Merz Barn, Elterwater, UK and co-ordinated a summer residency programme for Royal College of Art Students in July 2018. In 2015 she was awarded the REFRESH grant by Central Saint Martins for an artist residency in Onishi, Japan at Shiro Oni Studio, as well as artist-in-residence at Liebig 12, Berlin from December 2011-February 2012.

Catriona has exhibited at: the Merz Barn, Elterwater, England, (July 2018), the Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art Kensington, London, (June 2018), ‘WIP Show’ at the Sculpture Building, Royal College of Art, Battersea, London (January 2018), and at the Futuro House, SafeHouse London (February 2016) and Central Saint Martins, Kings Cross London (January 2016). As well as international exhibitions at the Galeri Mejan, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm (August 2016), the Futuro House, exhibition during artist residency in Onishi, Shiro Oni studios Gunma prefecture at the civic Centre, Onishi, Japan (July-August 2015) and was further selected for the ‘Kanna Art Festival’ selected Shiro Oni artists, Fujioka Gunma prefecture, Japan (September 2015).

Image 1. Connected – 2016. Exhibition at SafeHouse, Peckham, London.

Image 2. Un-Monument 2018 , Royal College of Art Battersea, London. Concrete, steel, resin, polyurethane, plywood, plaster, acrylic.  50 x 70 x 410 cm.

Image 3. Moulded 2017, Concrete, plaster, thistle, plywood. 78 x 42 x 30 cm.

Image 4. Merzsaüle 2018, Merz Barn Elterwater, Langdale England. On show until October 2018.  Concrete, slate, slate clay, plaster, plywood, found objects (steel, newspaper, rope, card, plastics).

Anna Sofie Mathiasen

Anna Sofie Mathiasen (b. 1995, Copenhagen) lives and works in Oslo. She holds a BFA from the Academy of Fine Art, Oslo (2018), where she will complete her master studies in 2020. Working with mixed media installations, writing, analogue and digital, photography, film and animation, she investigates and mediates archives, which she collects and assembles from her surroundings and personal sphere.

By processing and presenting the material continuously using a variety of methods Mathiasenn produces images and narratives that explore different ideas and relations she has about, and with, the material. Mathiasen has exhibited at RAM Galleri, Akershus Kunstsenter, and Akademirommet.

Image 1, 2: Exhibition at RAM Galleri; Vi mødes i mørket og giver hånd, 2018.
Photos by Istvan Virag

Image 3, 4: Stills from film Excavation, 2018. Cinematographer Vegard Landsverk

Nanna Melland

Nanna Melland (b.1969) is a jewellery artist based in Oslo.  At the core of her work lies a fundamental curiosity in the relationship between nature and human existence. She is fascinated by symbols and rituals, as well as by unpleasant and dark tensions inherent to life.

Combining and experimenting with form, material, technique and subject until she finds a type of unity – maybe harmony in the disharmonic. Inter-Uterine-Devices (IUD`s), nails in gold, cast pig’s hearts, orchids in lead and aluminium airplanes hence achieve – albeit paradoxically – a coherent whole.

Melland initially trained in goldsmithing at Elvebakken Technical School, and received a Canditata Magister from the University of Oslo in the subject history of religion, social anthropology and Tibetan language and culture before going on to study at The Munich Academy of Arts, Germany, where she was appointed Meister student, and for her diploma work in 2008 received both the academy's Debut Prize, and the Norwegian Craft prize in Norway. Her work has been bought by national and international private and public collections. Nordenfjeldske Art and Craft museum, Collection Marzee in the Netherlands, Collection Hiko Mizuni in Japan and Collection Susan Cummins in USA among others.

Evgeniya Martirosyan

Evgeniya Martirosyan is an artist based in Ireland with a background in philosophy and design. She graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in 2016, receiving a number of residencies and exhibition awards, including residencies at National Sculpture Factory and Sample Studios, Ireland and an exhibition award at Cork Film Centre. Her most recent work has been shown at 126 Gallery, Galway Arts Festival, Ireland; Leeds Digital Festival, UK ; and TACTIC Gallery, Ireland.

Working primarily in the mediums of sculpture and installation, Martirosyan is interested in exploring the concepts of time, matter, chaos and transformation. She builds complex dynamic structures and uses transient organic matter, reflecting on the poetic possibilities of the fluid and constantly shifting state of things.

Image 1: The Shape of Emptiness, 2017. Metal, air compressor, silicone tubing, water, washing up liquid, plastic, timer. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.

Image 2: Between Something and Nothing, 2017. Refrigeration system, acrylic, copper piping, metal tray, timer. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.

Image 3: Dream Machine, 2017. Metal, plastic, acrylic tubing, corn syrup, led light. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.

Image 4: Your Quantum Uncertainty, 2016. Metal, water, water pump, tubing, wood, live projection.

Martirosyan's participation in residency eleven, Monumental—Temporal has been made possible due to kind support from the Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training Award.

Claudia Mann

Claudia Mann is a sculptor whose work is process oriented and conceptual. She also resorts to other media in her work, e.g. video, photography and language which serve as mirrors reflecting her sculptural works. 

"Outer space is just as relevant for me as the centre of the earth. We are space. In order to comprehend the dimensions of space right up to the centre of the earth one should be fully aware of the fact that the ground only seems to be an impenetrable surface. However, it consists of air as well as material. Ground is a very self-centred version of what in fact is only material. That is why it is a component of the definition of ‘horizon’. It stretches to the horizon. One’s location starting with the feet, eye level and then what one sees is all physically dependent on this. (…) 

The ground is the starting of sculpture and the sculpture itself. But the human entity is and remains the reference. In the past I used to move and work above this ‘surface’. By means of various processes the necessity arose to break through it and to perceive it. What exactly is the ground? Where does it begin and where does it end? To perceive something and then to clearly accept it for what it is a form of appropriation. Not merely the wish to hold onto a thought but to own its equivalent made of matter. Air is just as much matter, we are matter. Perception means using the senses. However most of the time we use our senses unconsciously. It is interesting to become aware of one’s own senses."

Image 1: Aero, 2016. Resin, metall, soil, sand 205 x 140 x 217 cm.
Photo: Ivo Faber, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn De Statua, KIT Düsseldorf.

Image 2: SOLID AERO, 2017. Inkjet print.
Photo: Claudia Mann, VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn.

Image 3: Cast, 2016. Resin, metal, 260 x 320 x 120 cm.
Photo: Dejan Saric, Kunstraum Düsseldorf Förderpreisträger 2016.

Image 4: Tombé.Tambour, 2016. Tarred board, resin, grass, wood, 205 x 621 x 621 cm. New Talents Biennale 2016, Poststrasse, Cologne

Shahrzad Malekian

Shahrzad Malekian (1983/ Iran) is an interdisciplinary artist working with video, performance and sculpture. Malekian’s works often address the human conditions she experiences around her. Her interests include power structures, presentations of gender, the complexity of interpersonal relationships, and shifts that occur in the transition between the private and public domains.

Her works have been shown internationally in group exhibitions in Brazil, USA, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and London. Her video piece was selected for International Film Festival Rotterdam and Göteborg International Film Festival in Jan 2013. She was the finalist for MOP CAP 2015 prize.

Malekian holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Art University of Tehran and is a current MFA Art and Public Space candidate at Kunsthøgskolen I Oslo, Norway. She lives and works in Oslo and Tehran.

Image 1: WARDROBE MEMORIES, Performance, Sommerøya Festival, 2018
Image 2: WARDROBE MEMORIES, Performance, Sommerøya Festival, 2018
Image 3: URBAN EXPERIENCES, Public Intervention, 2015
Image 4: MAKEUP EXPERIMENTS: LIPSTICK, Video Performance, 2013

Benjamin Lignel

Benjamin Lignel is an artist, writer and curator. He was the editor of Art Jewelry Forum between January 2013 and December 2016, and edited three books under AJF’s imprint, including the first book-length study of jewelry exhibition-making.

His most recent curatorial project was Medusa, Jewellery and Taboos (2017) at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, in collaboration with Anne Dressen and Michèle Heuzé. Benjamin has lectured extensively on craft, and likes to organize (or co-organize) symposia on jewellery, of which The Public and Private Lives of Jewellery (Zimmerhof, 2011), Forgetting Jewellery (Paris, 2017) and The Fuzzy, the Fake and the Double - Trouble in Ornament (Paris, 2017).

He is a guest teacher at the Akademie der Bildende Künste (Nürnberg) and at Alchimia (Florence), and a mentor in the Handshake 4 pedagogical program (New Zealand). Ben regularly contributes essays to magazines, monographs and museum publications, and is currently working with co-editor Namita Wiggers towards a series of publications on jewelry and gender. He lives in Montreuil (France).

Gender and adornment research, documentation archive from San Francisco field trip, November 2016, photo: Lignel / Wiggers.

This research was supported by a Craft Research Fund grant from The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, Inc., which was administered by Art Jewelry Forum.

matt lambert

matt lambert's work pushes the preconceptions and possibilities of jewelry and adornment as traditionally understood. Adornment has the ability to blur the fields of design, craft, fashion, and art—and through inhabiting queer and/or liminal spaces adornment has great strength. lambert believes that this aspect has yet to be fully explored as a terroristic act towards Westernized institutions.

Based in Detroit, lambert holds an MFA in metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art with addition to specific university training in craft skills, such as metalsmithing, ceramic, and fiber. Through apprenticeships lambert has also studied semi-antique rug restoration and leather working. lambert holds academic training in art history, psychology/human sexuality, and cultural studies from Wayne State University in Detroit MI.

lambert's work has been collected internationally and shown at venues including: Swedish Center for Architecture and Design (Stockholm, Sweden); Kunstnerforbundet (Oslo, Norway); the Craft Council of British Columbia Gallery (Vancouver, Canada); Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern (Munich, Germany); the Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and the Queer Culture Center (San Francisco, California). In 2017-2018 lambert was the first international artist based in jewelry/metalsmithing to be invited as a resident at IASPIS the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s programme for visual artists and designers in Stockholm, Sweden.