Sebastian Makonnen Kjølaas & Siri Hjorth

Siri Hjorth (1986)  and Sebastian Makonnen Kjølaas (1985) are two contemporary artists accomplishing high performance, premium, award-winning works that are safe, healthy, and certified sustainable.

When Kjølaas and Hjorth first got married in the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in 2016 - they had already been working closely on a series of artistic projects since 2009. They now live and work in Oslo. Their artistic output include ceramics, textile, watercolours, latex and eggs.

Hjorth recently had her solo show “Looner Mooner" at Nebbelux in 2016, and participated in the production of “From Butter to Margarin” in 2017, directed by Pernille Lindstad and organised by “Munchmuseet on the Move” at Gallery 1857 in Oslo. She works with textile, costume and performance, and generates an unpredictable and sneaky world - disturbingly erotic. She opened the National Gallery's new Middle East Wing with a performativ staging of the painting “Marriage in Hardanger” by Tidemann and Gude. Hjorth has shown her work at the Black Box Theatre, Kunstnernes Hus, and Kunsthaus KULE in Berlin. Graduated with a Bachelor in Visual Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2014.

In 2015 Kjølaas won the Debutant Prize at the Autumn State Exhibition. He has toured the country since 2016 with his solo show “On dry things” showcased at different Art Societies around Norway, including Hammerfest, Eidsberg, Haugesund, Volda and Trondheim. He is the artist and author behind “The Institute of Art and Crime” (2014) published by Torpedo Press. Graduated in 2012 with a Master in Visual Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

In addition to their praxis both Kjølaas and Hjorth hold positions at Prosjektskolen Art School, as Prorector and teacher. Together they have started the artist run spaces GAGO between 2009 - 2011, and SALT between 2011-2013. With Marianne Bredesen they have developed the project “Wittgenstein on Vacation” (2015 - 2019) supported by KORO, Art in Public Space Norway.

Nondumiso Lwazi Msimanga

Nondumiso Lwazi Msimanga is a performance artist and provocateur. Known for her public arts activism and provocative public speaking, she performs many different roles. Her performance work deals with umsebenzi of protest practices and asks questions about ritual and rape. Nondumiso is also an independent arts’ writer and academic.

Eli Maria Lundgaard

Eli Maria Lundgaard (b.1989 in Trondheim, Norway) finished a BFA at Bergen Academy of Art and Design in 2015. She will start on a MFA at Malmö Art Academy in 2016.

She works with video, drawing, collages and sculpture.

Her art is about comprehension. She explores different concepts of the psyche, for instance anxiety or hypochondria. She also questions the subject and its surroundings: how body and environment are shaped by influences, direct intervention, or evolution and natural changes.

The relationship between the natural and the artificial is interesting. Both science and art are curious and concerned the absence of information. We are looking for systems and definitions to put things in. Everything around us should be categorized and organized. These categories and systems come from what we are learned to look for. What cannot be described "physically", but only sensed, leads to speculation and fantasy. What do we do when explanations are missing?

What we cannot see or explain turn into myths, monsters and magic. Fiction and dreams blends with reality and makes a setting we can live within and think.

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.

Auli Laitinen

Auli Laitinen is a jewellery artist based in Stockholm, Sweden. She is interested in contexts involving collaborative thinking and ideas including maker, wearer and viewer. Laitinen uses text, textile, and ready-mades to explore contemporary adornment. She sees jewellery as an active art form, whereby willing exhibitors carry signs of the makers ideas. Ideally, the wearer is engaged with the concept and aesthetics, and encourages conversation around what they wear.

Laitinen's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally since her graduation in 2000. She has received numerous grants and is represented at the National Museum in Stockholm and the Röhss Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden. She occasionally. teaches.

You wear, you watch the wearer, and you watch the wearer being watched.

- Auli Laitinen               

Mathew Lacosse

Mathew Lacosse (b. 1990, CA) is an artist and organiser whose work reevaluates and embellishes both architectural and natural space—its components, histories, and potentials. He holds a BFA (Hons) from the University of Manitoba (2018) and is currently living in Oslo.

Lacosse has exhibited at Gallery 623 (Solo, Winnipeg), Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts (Winnipeg), and curated exhibitions at the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, GoSA, Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, and others. His writing has appeared in SCAN Journal and rip/torn magazine.

Image 1: Between Two Bridges, Wild Grass, 2016

Image 2: Separation, Reclaimed Spruce and Fir, 2017

Image 3: SOFA Students Association, Spectator / Boundary Net, Exhibition for Nuit Blanche in Winnipeg, Canada. 2017

Gunnlaug Kuløy

Gunnlaug Bina Kuløy uses visual media, audio and sculptural installations to explore the intricate weave of circumstance, coincidence, emotion and decision that define a present situation or a state of mind. In turn this opens up a space to reflect upon interconnectedness in its many forms, and possible future trajectories. Her work evolves around themes as diverse as nostalgia and the immaterial connotations of objects, as well as biodiversity and the extinction of species. It often intersects with the realm of science; negotiating the ground between personal experience, observation and scientific research. Her intense focus on detail often results in the creation of spaces that demand full attentiveness in exchange for a sense of intimacy.

Gunnlaug holds a masters degree in Visual anthropology and has worked in various fields including cinematic production in Cuba, research on visual literacy in developing countries, media in exile and theatre production. The past few years she has divided her time between Oslo and Burma/Myanmar, working on projects related to wild endemic orchid conservation and mangrove forest restoration, resulting in the exhibitions Black Orchid Red Line, Goethe institute, Yangon (2016) and Macro Mangrove, Gallery 65 (2016). Her most recent exhibition Fate Undecided (2017) examined nostalgia in a socio-political context and was held at a site-specific location in Yangon.

Tina Kryhlmann

Tina Kryhlmann (b 1986, Oslo) completed her MFA in Fine Arts at Malmö Art Academy 2017. Working in an extended field of practises, varying from text, scuplture, installation, video and artist books, she uses painting as a pivot point and vantage point, to question the role of the self.

Kirsty Kross

Kirsty Kross holds a Bachelors Degree in Art History from the University of Queensland and a Masters of Art in Context from the Berlin University of the Arts.

Her work has been featured in Bedfellows at Tate Modern London, The Partisan Cafe at The Bergen Assembly, Østlandsutstillingen, ONO and PINK CUBE in Oslo as well as in Berlin at Parkhaus Projekts, Galerie Crystal Ball and Galerie Walden.  From 2000-2010 Kirsty Kross was a co-creator and performer in the music/performance group, Team Plastique and performed extensively across Europe and Australia at clubs and events such as Glastonbury, Kunstsalon Berlin and the closing party of the 2006 Berlin Biennale.

Kirsty Kross’ work combines performance, drawing, music and installation and deals with thehuman condition questioning appropriate adult behaviour and the relationship between the artist, artwork and audience. Her recent work deals with the attention economy, global economic and social changes as well as impending ecological doom. Kirsty Kross moved to Oslo in 2015 and is a board member of Performance Art Oslo.

Photographs by (from top to bottom) Miguel Lope, Thor Brødreskift, Zane Cerpina

Kjetil Detroit Kristensen

Kjetil Detroit Kristensen (b.1981) is an artist based in Oslo, Norway. He is currently occupied with his ongoing contemporary post-studio practice, interest for self-initiated venues, performative strategies, site (and situation) specific projects, pseudonyms, monochromes and polar bears. And also a belief that public art and democracy somewhat are the same, since the one thing cannot function without the other.

Kristensen is founder of the artist-run laboratory for art & public space Detroit Kunsthalle and co-founder of the organisation and collective September Split. He co-founded the collaborative curatorial platform and professional skateboard-art-team Contemporary Cruise Crew as well as the artist-run studio space VORTA at Lokomotivverkstedet in Middelalderparken, Oslo.

Kristensen holds a BA from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art (2011) and a MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2018). He has exhibited at Nebbelux, Fredrikstad; Gallery SØ, Copenhagen; Trinosophes, Detroit; Studio17, Stavanger; space 4235, Genova; The NY Art Book Fair, New York; MOCA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Haikou; Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger; Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø; Akademirommet - Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Kurant Visningsrom, Tromsø; Occupy Landscape, Stavanger; Dronning Sonja KunstStall at The Royal Palace, Oslo and Festspillene i Nord-Norge, Harstad among others.

Sarah Kazmi

Sarah Kazmi (b.1990 Karachi) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and researcher. Through the lens of food as an artistic medium, she uses anthropological and participatory action research (PAR) to disseminate her practice, her double life between occupations of two, bartender/artist; investigating socio-political change within personal and community-based rituals. Her practice incorporates texts, audio, live readings, installations and image-based works to explore circulation processes of food as strategy for communication and knowledge production, its significance in our everyday life, beyond a consumption culture. Her most recent and ongoing work O.K.R.A (Oslo Kitchen Radio Archive) is a long-term research-based duo project with landscape architect Miles Hamaker; using audio-visual methods to document the increasing gentrification and the inevitable encroachment on the existing communities of central east Oslo.

Kazmi recently graduated with an MFA in Art and Public Space at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She has been selected as a fellow at RAW Académie Session 8 entitled Tour de Table. She has worked as a research trainee for HUMAN Documentary Film Festival 2020 and has also participated at Food Art Film Festival at the Jan Van Eyck Academie. She lives and works in Oslo, Norway.

Kazmi participated in Residency 17, Climata, which was developed with Lasse-Marc Riek and the Goethe Institut.

Maren Dagny Juell

Maren Dagny Juell is an Oslo based artist working with moving image and installation. Her subjects are alienated, filled with doubt and with a yearning for control and personal development. Maren is interested in the borders of subjectivity and individual autonomy. This is approached with narrative text often collected from online forums and tutorials. The works seeks to embody an investigation into the reality of appearances, surfaces and definition of visual space aided by technology.

Maren studied in London and has an MA from Chelsea College of Art. Recently exhibitions has been at Stavanger Art Museum and Papay Gyro Nights (Orkney and Hong Kong) amongst others. She won an award for video at BEERS contemporary (London) in 2013 and was included in Lights On Norwegian Contemporary Art at the Astrup Fearnely Museum in Oslo in 2008.

www.marenjk.net

Video: Maren Dagny Juell, Tutorial#6: It’s our ability to create stylish meals that separates us from the animals (Bear Grylls)

Tutorial#6 refers to instructional videos by survivalists. Three men meet and have a conversation made up by fragmented quotations collected from instructional tutorial videos and on-line forums about survival. During the meeting, they all make a flower out of gaffer tape, zip-ties and para-cord. 

The work was initially made for an exhibition related to the tapestry weaver Frida Hansen (1855-1931) and also includes sculptures. Juell was interested in the gender roles assigned to textile craft and the purpose of these activities (craft clubs- craft as therapy). Her project is a fictional account of themale dominated culture of survivalist preparing for the apocalypse.

Clara J:son Borg

Clara J:son Borg (1986) is an artist from Sweden, based in Rotterdam (NL). She graduated in 2016 from The Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, with an MA in Fine Art.

The attention of her works and research is directed towards staged situations where verbal language and bodily movement find themselves interacting. By setting up and enacting these staged situations (mainly executed through video and performance) her aim is to provoke moments where verbal and physical communications methods fit loosely to one another. She understands this looseness as a way of storytelling, but also as an invitation to observe different elements of interpersonal relationships, social choreographies, knowledge hierarchies and bodily relation to physical space and images. 

Sarah Jury

Sarah Jury is a writer, games designer and curator based in London. Sarah has edited publications and co-curated events on feminist digital practices at ICA, the Barbican and Res, London. Sarah has written live action role plays that rethink societal structures either directly, or in abstract non-verbal form for Science Gallery London, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, Tate Exchange, Liverpool and [Space], London and has lectured on themes of role-play and participatory practice at Birkbeck, London and Yale, USA. Sarah is part of Keep it Complex, a feminist collective that confronts political issues through creative ideas and action.

Image credit: 'Challenging Structures' Live action role play by Sarah Jury and Bez Shahriari for Science Gallery London, Feb 2020. Illustration by Rachel Sale. 

Ayesha Jordan

Ayesha Jordan is a multidisciplinary performer and creator based in Oslo, Norway, and a 2024-2025 Princeton Hodder Fellow. Her research is based in applied permaculture studies, regenerative community/ecosystem formation and adaptation, event curation, heritage, and how these can be explored through performance, and inform performance methodologies. 

Ayesha's artistic pursuits extend beyond conventional boundaries, intentionally amplifying marginalized voices, especially from the global majority and disenfranchised communities. Her work encompasses themes such as ritual-making, multigenerational knowledge and exploration, archives, legacy, and collaborative and cooperative modes of production.

Some of her previous performance events include Shasta Geaux Pop, Come See My Double D's, Enter & Exit: Playing House, Enter & Exit: Family Reunion, Inter 1-to-1, and In the Tube. Other works include video projects Living Room Dance Breaks, Drunk & Famous, as well as a host of other songs and videos. Jordan has been seen as an actor in the Broadway production of Eclipsed by Danai Gurira and directed by Liesl Tommy, Home by Geoff Sobelle, Failure Sandwich and Ludic Proxy, by Aya Ogawa, Platonov: Or the Disinherited by Jay Scheib, and Stairway to Stardom and Harold I Hate You by Cakeface. She has also been featured in video work and photography by visual artist Carrie Mae Weems.

1. Ayesha Jordan. Photo By Alice Tomola.

2-4. Ayesha Jordan - Process

5. Cecilio From Geaux to Greaux

6. Ayesha at TekstLab. Photo: Darja Olsevskaja

7-11. Shasta Geaux Pop

Maria Jonsson

Using sculpture, installation, and performance, Maria Jonsson's practice investigates ways in which art can create social spaces. Different strategies and methods help facilitate processes that are both artistic and interpersonal. Her art is either based on, or inspired by human relations and there social context.

Jonsson is born in Colombia, raised in Sweden, and currently based between Bergen and Oslo. She holds an MFA from the KMD, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design 2016.

Tze Yeung Ho

Tze Yeung Ho (b. 1992) is a Norwegian composer.

Tze Yeung's music is created at the crossroads of understanding, reflecting his multilingual upbringing. His works explore the territories of speech, translation in language, dramaturgy and poetics. Working with Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric and Chinese poetry and prose, his music treads on the fragile landscapes of (mis)communication through (un)spoken words. Close collaboration with living writers, storytellers and word-based artists is integral to his practice. His creations usually result in some form of music theatre.

https://www.tzeyeungho.com/

Image: Det här är ögonblicket, 2023, with writer Heidi von Wright. Photo: Dante Thelestam.

Bianca Hlywa

Bianca Hlywa (CA) is an interdisciplinary artist based in London, UK. She uses various materials (especially SCOBY-Symbiotic Culture Of Bacterial Yeast) to discuss steadfast distinctions presented within culture: between life and non-life, the synthetic and organic, and the good and bad. 

Bianca holds an MA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths University. She was awarded a second place prize from a juried exhibition at the Barbican Arts Group Trust in London (2018), and recognised as an artist with Exceptional Talent from the Arts Council for a UK Visa in 2019. Bianca looks forward to upcoming solo shows at Verticale Arts Centre in Quebec (2020) and LOA Gallery in London (2020).  

Karoline Hjorth

Karoline Hjorth (b. 1980) is a Norwegian photographer, artist and writer with a journalism and tall-ship sailing background. She completed her BA Photographic Arts and MA International Journalism from the University of Westminster (London) in 2009. Hjorth's artistic practice explores the space between staged photography, documentary and text.

Her photographic work has received the Deloitte Award at the National Portrait Gallery (London) and her first book Mormormonologene (Eng. The Mormor Monologues) was published in 2011 (Forlaget Press). She is currently working on three books to be published in 2017; Eyes as Big as Plates (with Riitta Ikonen (FI)), Billett Merket (Eng. Personals, Forlaget Press) and Time is a ship that never casts anchor (Hjorth / Ikonen / Mesén). Her recent works have been exhibited at NADA Miami, Pioneer Works (NYC), Fotogalleriet (Oslo), Greenland National Museum, Norwegian National Museum (DKS) and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki), amongst others. 

http://karolinehjorth.com/
https://eyesasbigasplates.com/

Bianca Hisse

Bianca Hisse (b. 1994) is a Brazilian artist based in Tromsø, Norway. Her practice traverses performance and visual arts, exploring dislocations within social systems, collaborative circuits or interdependent arrangements, and often looking on how relational structures can be affected, sustained or destroyed by its own dynamics.

Hisse has presented work at Centro Cultural São Paulo; OC Oswald de Andrade; Casa Líquida (São Paulo, Brasil); Kulta Scenekunsthus; Galleri Snerk (Tromsø, Norway); Frystiklefinn Theater, Iceland; and others. Bianca holds a BA in Body Arts from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and is currently taking her MA in Contemporary Art at Kunstakademiet i Tromsø.