GROUNDCOVER
Last summer, as I stood in the sound of low tide, listening to the scallops closing and the wet soil absorbing water, my boots slowly sank into the soil, reminding me of how fragile and deceptive wetlands are. It’s neither entirely land nor water. It exists in a constant flux - a material caught in the tension of in-betweenness. Solid until disrupted, it becomes fluid, collapsing foundations we thought were secure. I have this book called ”jord och bröd” (soil and bread) that my father left behind as his legacy. Perhaps a suggestion to fill an endless void. But ultimately, I think he would remind me of this: soil is the one thing we must learn to cultivate to sustain life.
Both of my parents were travelers. They left their homes when they were 19 - my mother from Germany and my father from Kirkenes. Both carried a sense of grief and restlessness that stayed with them. Their motion was driven by endurance and resilience, qualities that I admire. Much of my inspiration comes from their archives, expanding from 1930 to 1990, which consist of letters, photographs (negatives), books, and documents that trace everyday life from Germany and Kirkenes, including life after WW II. Looking at the archives makes me think about what was lost and what people tried to hold on to. The archive is never static in that sense that it shifts depending on who’s looking at it, how it’s used, and where it’s brought. In my work, I often return to these materials across different projects, not to recreate them, but to ask what they mean now, in another context, another hand, another time.
I was told that my father worked in the iron mines of A/S Sydvaranger when he was around 18 years old. He practiced his violin during his lunch break in his car while reading ”Frihetens filosofi” (The Philosophy of Freedom). It was a rather romantic image that I would daydream about while watching him play. He was a man of temper and willpower. His hair was thin, and his eyes were grey. His skin would sometimes be red, and he often slept more than he was awake. His freshly shaved beard would prick my cheek when he hugged me before he left. His shoes were always polished to a shine, and his breath was fresh. I always knew that my father was two different people: one for me and one for others. A few years after his death, my grandma and I were looking through his hiking diaries from the 70s. They consisted of hiking routes, good and bad lakes for fishing, and some drawings of hares and dogs. Birch forests, rich swamp woodlands, and mountain meadows are characteristic of the northern terrain. A mix of tundra vegetation, hardy conifers, and wetland ecosystems. It is described as a place of peace. In between pages of a crushed mosquito and a packing list, my grandma told me about the hill behind their house where my father and his closest friend used to play. They often played with remnants from the war, such as barbed wire, scrap metal, and UXO (unexploded ordnance like shells, bombs, grenades, and landmines, to name a few). A child playing in a field while interacting with something that was never meant to be played with introduces an unsettling contrast. The site exists in between states.
Kirkenes is a post-mining town, a border community, and a military base. In Kirkenes, the stories of the past are tucked away in sites such as a 30-square-kilometer mine shaft. What remains visible are artificial mountains and the silhouettes of industrial chimneys. The legacy of A/S Sydvaranger reveals the cultural fractures that once defined the town. It also underscores the search for identity in a post-mining society and the need for coexistence among nature, culture, and industry in a post-mining society. I see my family in Kirkenes once a year, and the last time, in the autumn of 2023, A/S Sydvaranger was still working to get the operation up and running again and was paying engineers to maintain the machines. Grangex AB, a Swedish mining company, joined in for the sum of 330,000,000 NOK. The ”dream” of iron extraction has become an abstract tradable potential of something that could be. It is a forest of machines and mountains of tailings from 110 years of iron ore production. Unlike a shrimp that eats dead material, leaving sustenance for the next organism in the chain, the human leaves most behind for it to exist in the state as it was when it got irrelevant. AS Sydvaranger stands as an in-between space, a neither nor, that exists outside fixed categories. It is a product of error - not in the sense of failure, but in the way its presence plays head games. We expect it to exist in our time as something of function. Instead, it rests on the ground with its veins in the soil. Expanding further and further into the wild. It is as it was made, only in order to deceive. It has become a framework for understanding other spaces caught in similar states of in-betweenness.
UNCERTAIN TERRAINS
I am drawn to these spaces because they do not resolve themselves. They do not offer certainty, only an ongoing process of becoming - a tension between what was, what is, and what remains possible because they allow me, for the first time, to step outside the camera. I want to let myself be shaped by the site rather than only capture it. These spaces exist as what Inge Boer describes as uncertain territories - landscapes that defy stable definitions, caught between function and obsolescence, industry and wilderness. Boer suggests that boundaries are not fixed lines but spaces of negotiation, places that are ”inhabited, flexible, and dynamic.” Meaning is continuously redefined within them, shaped by shifting forces rather than predetermined structures. Places where meaning is continuously negotiated, where decay and persistence exist in tension.
Landscapes have been mined, excavated, leveled, cleared, reinforced, and built upon, but it has also been neglected, eroded, and abandoned. A simple hole in the ground could indicate six things;
Military or industrial remnants: A blast ground or crater, excavation site left behind from war or heavy industry.
Geological phenomena: Sinkholes caused by water erosion, karst features, or unstable ground like quick clay due to changes in salt levels.
Resource extraction: Old mine shafts, wells, or exploratory drilling holes that weren’t properly sealed.
Neglected infrastructure: Collapsed sections of outdated or abandoned tunnels, pipe systems, or other underground structures.
Animal activity: Burrows and dens created by wildlife such as foxes, rabbits, or rodents.
Wind-formed features: Depressions or holes in sand dunes formed by strong wind erosion over time.
1+1=WHATEVER IMAGINED
Throughout my master years, I have struggled with periods of creative uncertainty, questioning my approach, feeling out of place in my practice, and doubting whether my work was leading anywhere at all. I found that displacement itself became integral, and it has shaped how I interact with ideas. I have made doubt and persistence a part of my practice. But I have also been wrestling with the question, if we approach our art thinking about where it will end up, does that shape how we make it? And if so, does that mean we’re creating it for a specific purpose rather than out of a genuine drive? Take photography, for example.
Sometimes, I think, “This photo might end up on a wall or in a book,” but that’s not why I took it. If I had taken it because it was destined for a particular place, I might have approached the place or the situation differently. I have had photography as a foundation through my time in art school (gradually expanding into a broader material and conceptual practice). Most of my inspiration came from being outdoors. But my relationship with it changed: it was no longer about documenting but being within a landscape, responding to it, and working through its conditions in real-time.
While my work often engages with archival material, and continuation of works from previous production, I am equally interested in how archives are formed, manipulated, and contested. A big part of my practice revolves around looking through archived images, both personal and public. Looking back gives me an understanding of the present, but also raises questions.
I often look for places in rural and urban spaces that contrast my expectations of the place. (For instance, I feel this when visiting AS Sydvaranger in Kirkenes.) Working in places that reveal their signs of deterioration teaches me something about closeness, sensitivity, depth, and durability. I try to take that in as principles for working, as well as envisage working with the somatic influence of places. I aim to capture the tension between permanence and impermanence, revealing relationships that may otherwise remain unseen. Each image is an invitation to the viewer to uncover these hidden dynamics and reflect on their implications.
In my photography, I aim to challenge associations - letting 1+1 become whatever the viewer imagines, outside my control. It’s the space in between, or before and after the moment captured, that is the space I want to be. In the non space. Where meaning remains open-ended.
ALL THAT A ROOM CAN CARRY
The biggest shift in my practice came with moving from the indoor studio to an outdoor studio. The outdoor studio is an open-air space situated under the sky.
At first, it was suggested as a practical solution, a parallel site to the traditional indoor space, where certain materials I worked with could be used (fish oil and tar). But it soon became routine, a task. My engagement with space became more direct and dependent on physical presence. The outdoor studio first appeared as something outside its comfort zone, a place initially defined by an imagined desire. Over the last two years of working there, I’ve come to see it as more than a place for finished pieces. It’s a space of constant change, resistance, and potential destruction, where the work keeps reinventing itself.
For most of the year, the studio has stood unnoticed, indifferent, occasionally activated by a group course, occasionally framed as if I were fulfilling its intended function. It wasn’t until after the exhibition at Bergen Kjøtt, combined with a course I had that spring semester (studio: studio), that I started to acknowledge all the other things the room had. I started to notice everything that was left in the room. The woodlogs, the wire. The painting on the walls and the scaffolding (now referred to as the drying rack). A stump. A broom. Most of the time, I sweep the floor, watch textiles become soaked, and dig them up from under the snow. I collected water in buckets that I later used to wash the floor when it was at its warmest to prevent cracks from forming. I observe mosquito larvae swimming inside the buckets and leave them be. I removed dirt from the ground and remnants from previous use. I worked with what was there, with all that the room could carry. I started tracking my activity on the walls with a marker, marking the shifts in presence and movement.
Four walls, an open-air roof, and a wooden floor slowly twisting away from its original form as a reminder of its erosion. It wasn’t until my third semester that I realized my practice focused on engaging with terrains and environments that do not reveal themselves as certain.
I aim to find a way to tell a story that remains connected to a sense of place and belonging, even while embracing movement and change. I want to understand how we create memories and develop attachments to places that are in constant flux.
I depend on the room, but the room does not depend on me.
THE TEXTILES
The textiles became a part of my material research when I started my master’s. Using silkscreened images on the textiles was originally an idea, but it quickly got covered by adding layers of cod liver oil, tar, glue, and tissue paper. I used old textiles, which resulted in various outcomes. I try to stay conscious about what I use, where it came from, and what the impact would be. The textiles I use undergo a reworking process involving an old bark technique (impregnating sails method) from old times. This process results in textiles that are quite different from their original form. They become stiff, rigid, and odorous. The use of ’natural’ materials on the textile ensures their longevity, even as their placement in environments like the saltwater at Bergen Kjøtt pushes them towards decay. Eventually, some of them end up being altered, but most of them stand. This contrast represents something enduring and resilient but also something potentially destructive or overwhelming, in the sense that losing work in the process is also something unexpected, unsettling..confusing..but also completely fine.
How does placement and environment influence the perception and impact of a work? For example, would a work put in an urban setting differ from the work in a rural setting? How can a work be in dialogue with the place it inhabits rather than imposing itself upon it? And when is the work done?
In Autumn 2024, I brought my work from the outdoor studio to Hamphallen in Fjøsangerveien, an abandoned space consisting of a 320-meter-long ropewalk as well as an additional building alongside the ropewalk, called Hamphallen. Within each room, the air moves freely. Primarily because of the lack of doors and broken windows. How do I engage with such spaces artistically? Is it I who gives meaning to the room, or does the abandoned space impart meaning to me? Are the works merely objects on a frame, or do they transcend to become part of the space?
DEVOTION
My childhood home stands on an island called Engøy (directly translated to” Meadow Island”). Whenever I mention its name, I envision lush grasslands scattered with wildflowers. In reality,
however, it is quite the opposite. A shadow from a 1070-meter-long concrete bridge built in 1987 darkened our garden. The bridge is merely a stone’s throw from our house. Seven massive concrete piers rise dramatically through the landscape. The space between the piers creates fields of dust and grain, where a gravel waste from an earlier house expansion is now covered in poppies. Over time, nature has gradually taken over the field. It was fenced off and designated as a football field, though only dogs off-leash seemed to claim it, marking the piers with their presence. Beyond the field lies a coastal landscape characterized by rocky outcrops and juniper, birch, pine, rowan, and blackberry vines. From its highest point, you can reach the lowest beam of the bridge. The concrete road reflects sound, creating an ever-present, long-lasting white noise. I’m not sure if it’s the bridge or our house that feels displaced.
A recent event concerning the actual continuation and existence of the outdoor studio has led me to reconsider how I approached my upcoming proposal for Kunsthall. Even though the outdoor studio would continue to exist in whatever form it would end up in, I have had this constant worry that I wouldn’t find my space and place again after school. The independence I feel in school is still supported by a safety net. I think my work at Kunsthall represents, at some level, the anxiety of not having the assurance close by, a place to stay after school or having a place at all.
PERFECT STATE
“Perfect State” (a term used to describe an object’s ideal condition) materialized from the tension between permanence and change. It consists of eight concrete casts made one by one on the floor in the outdoor studio. The work represents something I can move and take with me, yet it is self-contradictory in its materiality between stability and displacement. It is connected to the outdoor studio in form but stands as its own object when moved. Each cast varies in surface and dimension but serves the same purpose. This makes them adaptable and can be repositioned or reinterpreted in future projects. Miwon Kwon writes about this tension in ”One place after another” how works must negotiate between being rooted and being mobile. When art is moved, its meaning shifts. It becomes not just an object, but part of a larger narrative shaped by its new context. “Perfect State” exists in this in-between. It’s a neither/nor object. It can be displaced, absorbed, or redefined depending on where and how it’s used. This ambiguity is what interests me. This asymmetry. I rely on the outdoor studio for purpose, shelter, and structure. But the room continues to exist independently of my presence.
I find the ability to reuse and change them compelling. At Kunsthall, I wanted to bring the space I´ve been working in with me. Alongside the work made in the outdoor studio (textiles), I’m showing a piece that evokes a sense of mobility.
The casts bear the imprint of the studio floor. On top of them are “twenty-nine textiles,” folded together with first aid kits subtly pointing toward future possibilities and the need for safety in the act of making (underscores the importance of having a secure place to work). The casts protect. The textiles hold. A desolate landscape makes room for a dream playground.
