After spending 30 years in Gamle Lillestrøm’s teachers’ residence, a historical wooden house from 1892, Akershus Kunstsenter has moved into a new building. Coincident with the completion of the art centre’s new building and following the regional reforms of 2020, Akershus County was renamed Viken. Akershus Kunstsenter thus also chose to change its name, create a new identity and strengthen its local roots. For its new name, the art centre chose “Nitja”, inspired by the original Norse dialect name for the river that flows through Lillestrøm. The word “nitja” comes from the Norse verb (h)nita, which means “to collide”. The new name, Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art, serves as a descriptive metaphor for the centre’s identity and goal: a contemporary art centre looking to the future and acting in the present – while also being historically and locally grounded. The centre’s opening exhibition has also found its starting point in these ambitions.
Above Us Only Sky! is the title of the opening exhibition in the art centre’s new building, presenting artworks that aim in diverse ways to stimulate curiosity. Through painting, video works, sculpture, installation, photography and contemporary dance, the works reflect on change, resistance and mobility – addressing the individual’s opportunities for social participation and influence. Welcoming the public on the way into the exhibition is a video work, Artist Interview by Lea Cetera. In the video the artist has staged an interview with herself, in which she reflects on her identity as an artist and as a person of colour. Because the artist has distorted the interviewee’s voice and blurred her face, the video is reminiscent of a question-and-answer confession – with alternating styles of monologue and conversation. Can categorization and representation shape our expectations about the people we meet? How do we perceive others?
Mariken Kramer’s video work, draws the visitor’s gaze to the floor to explore a similar theme. The work brings back childhood memories of drawing with chalk on the sidewalk, and of teachers writing important things on the classroom blackboard. In the video, chalk is used to trace a line that separates or divides, perhaps a boundary – addressing the divides that we construct between “us” and “them”.
In front of the gallery space’s large window stands Marit Justine Haugen’s sculptural installation Self-Erasing Drawing, which also reflects, in this case poetically, on the intangible and complex topic of borders. Sand and coal dust, arranged in a funnel to form a map of the world, flow slowly through the funnel, as if it were an hourglass, mixing on the floor. Each time the flow runs out, the container must be refilled with the now-merged materials. Through this repetitive gesture the difference of colours is erased, and the initially sharp borders of the work’s sand-and-coal world map eventually cease to exist.
Looking upwards from Marit Justine Haugen’s work, one can see the wall piece Untitled (There is no border here) by Indian artist Shilpa Gupta. The work consists of tape applied to the wall to form letters, with the overall text arranged in the shape of a flag. The work’s subtle and poetic text deals with philosophical questions related to a relationship or to its break-up, while at the same time it could be talking about political questions related to territories and other geographical divisions. While flags usually refer to a nation’s sovereignty, Gupta’s work provokes reflections on the distinction between “mine” and “yours”, as well as questions of power and migration. The work also comments on John Lennon’s utopian vision of a borderless world.
Hanging from the ceiling in the nearest corner of the gallery space is Steinar Haga Kristensen’s towering monumental work The Spread of Dilettantism #04. Portraying two people seemingly forced to sit on their own hands, the work carries associations to commands such as “sit still” and can be interpreted as a metaphor for the expectation that people should preferably not challenge social norms. But how should we act when we disagree with those norms, or when we want to change the rules? How can we break free from expectations and conventions, or change the structures that shape us?
Scattered on the floor between Shilpa Gupta and Steinar Haga Kristensen’s works stand a number of small sculptures by Gisle Harr. When we look closely at these sculpted figures, a number of personalities emerge. Harr’s works are often inspired by people close to him, and he has a particular sensitivity to people’s characters. The sculptures are made of plaster, and elicit a sense of recognition. The viewer can identify with the figures, while also recognizing loneliness within the group. The different characters also address the various stories we all carry, as well as the personal stories that form part of the larger history each of us has the opportunity to influence and change.
A certain sense of recognition can also be experienced with Tala Madani’s animation Mr. Time. The work presents a person riding an escalator, but each time he reaches an upper floor, a group of people pushes him back downstairs – and each time he is a little more injured by the fall. As a Sisyphus-like scene (Sisyphus is a mythological figure compelled to roll a stone to the top of a slope, the stone always escaping him near the top and rolling down again), the animation is macabre and comical at the same time – as the dismembered body parts continue to move on their own in order to reach the upper floor. What are the reasons justifying the group’s violence? In a recent interview, Madani stated: “You understand who you are by how you’re looked at” – addressing how it is everyone’s responsibility to break down prejudices of perception.
Further along the wall and free-standing in the gallery space are three sculptures by Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira. Made of recycled furniture, wood and rusty metal plates, the sculptures carry a powerful and organic presence that triggers a number of associations: the chest of drawers where you hide all your mess and things that shouldn’t be seen; the old clock at your grandparents’ house, loudly ticking and clanging its bells; the living-room couch that you sink into to watch the television news. These beautifully rendered sculptures and the more repulsive-looking couch seem to be loaded with histories, without revealing a clear narrative. The flaring bark of the tree sculpture may also remind you of the strength of sprouting roots, or of the power of weeds to grow in unexpected and unwelcome places.
Like Lea Cetera and Mariken Kramer, Hanan Benammar reflects on rhetoric and communication, but with a more humorous approach. How does one express anger or frustration? Benammar has asked people from various cultural backgrounds about the use of swear words in their native languages, in order to translate these words into different Norwegian dialects. The expressions were then carved into linoleum and printed onto sheets of fragile paper – conveying further reflections on culture and history. The resulting linocuts have a playful and humorous tone, but also remind us about how language reflects geographical, social and cultural backgrounds – as well as language’s potential to bring us together or create divisions.
On the far wall of the gallery space hangs a monumental triptych painting by Arne Ekeland (1908-1994). Ekeland established himself as one of the great Norwegian artists, and is well known for the strong political commitment embodied in the themes of his works, such as anti-war and humanism. The triptych is in many ways the starting point for the entire exhibition Above Us Only Sky! Through various lines of thought, the painting gathers together the various works in the exhibition, drawing parallels from past to present, from local to global. Ekeland was born and based in Eidsvoll, a place nearby Lillestrøm. He identified strongly with the local working class, while also reflecting a more global perspective through his work. His social ideals led him to join the Communist Party, where class struggles and models for equality were central.
In Ekeland’s triptych [1], crowds of people are drawn together in a closely-packed group, while one woman stands out in the painting’s central section. The woman is the American activist and academic Angela Davis (b. 1944), a central figure in the United States’ civil rights movement of the 1960s. Davis worked and continues to work to expose structural and racial inequalities, as well as the need for better systems of education and health care – and has become a key figure in the struggle for core human rights along with other prominent figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks.
In contrast to the crowds in the painting, the figure of Angela Davis may represent the individual standing up for her own beliefs, fighting for changes to break down existing structures. With a lifelong commitment, Davis continues working for equal rights, and at the age of 77 she has stood side-by-side with the Black Lives Matter movement.
On the floor in front of Ekeland’s monumental work stands a small pink animal with a proboscis, installed facing a mirror. Next to the creature is a sign that reads “It’s not that I don’t like you, I just don’t understand you”. Through this familiar expression, artist Mariken Kramer addresses common excuses for xenophobia and discrimination. The animal’s unusual appearance can also refer to “the elephant in the room” – a metaphor for the obvious challenging topic that many are afraid to talk about.
Reflections on representation also form part of Adelita Husni-Bey’s work. The photograph in this exhibition, titled The Council, focuses on young adults’ perspectives and influence. The work came out of a series of workshops in which young adults were asked to re-imagine the role and function of art institutions following an apocalyptic crisis. The ability to think about challenging tasks in an alternative and creative way, combining education and activism, serves as a goal in Husni-Bey’s work.
While Husni-Bey’s project shows how young adults envision alternative scenarios, André Tehrani creates an open, multifaceted space of opportunity where details emerge when viewed close up, but differences disappear when viewed from a distance. “How does one experience the world?” is a topic of Tehrani’s works shown here. With a starting point in historical Persian mosaic patterns, Tehrani uses painting to explore figurative repetition with a graphic style of expression. The paintings are composed of pixel-like elements painted in shades of colour, reminiscent of prisms – inspired by the idea that what you see depends on which prism you decide to look through. Next to the painting hangs a wall sculpture, an open form, challenging the viewer to fill its void with content and meaning – as a new world that can start off with a clean slate.
Looking upwards, on a banner you can read: “Are we there yet?”. Like a child asking this question incessantly, even when the car ride has only just started, Kameelah Janaan Rashid repeatedly puts this question to the viewer, like a mantra. Rashid’s work is based on language and archive-based research. However, this text-piece doesn’t explain what is meant with “there” and “yet”, nor is the context for who “we” are clearly stated. Therefore, the viewer is encouraged to ponder the point of view from which this question is asked; what form can language and communication have, and how do these affect content and meaning?
As part of the exhibition, the two performance artists Sulekha Ali Omar and Lea Agathe Basch have been invited to develop a performance exploring the connections between the works exhibited in Above Us Only Sky! The participating dancers have extracted characters from the exhibition’s works in order to create a choreographic performance that will take place within the gallery space. The dancers are Putli Hellesen, Mohammed Abdirasahid, Solveig Laland Mohn, and Jeffrey. The performance will take place the last weekend of the exhibition period.
Last but not least, the exhibition’s final work encourages the visitor to look upwards. Installed high on the wall over other works in the gallery space – as well as in the centre’s foyer – are a number of hand-painted flags made by students of Lillestrøm kulturskole (Lillestrøm’s Cultural School) during a workshop with artists Mark Anthony Wennberg and Liv Østerberg. The flags are inspired by traditional Buddhist prayer flags, which are used to promote peace, compassion, strength and wisdom. In Tibetan Buddhism, flags do not carry prayers to a god, but are thought of as “wind horses”, spreading positive opportunities in the wind. Flags also refer to activism, resistance and the possibility of change – concepts charged with further strength when addressed by young people.
With this salute, welcome to NITJA!
—The exhibition is curated by Rikke Komissar, Tor Arne Samuelsen, Monica Holmen and Martina Petrelli.
[1] Arne Ekeland’s triptych was painted on commission for Dønski Upper Secondary School in Bærum County, which was inaugurated in 1974, the year when Davis’ autobiography was published. The painting was restored at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter around 1990, and has since been stored in the centre’s archive depository as part of the county art collection.