Site specific happening and performance, with curated and commissioned videoworks, performances and texts.
↓Under the Park. Text
2021
Site specific happening and performance, with curated and commissioned videoworks, performances and texts.
- Production team:
- Lights: Phillip Isaksen
- Stage: Jon Løvøen
- Video editor: Chelsea Knight
- Video documentation: Cirenia Escobedo Esquivel, Richard Aall
- Graphic design: Ulf Carlsson
- Production assistants: Reyes Santiago, Lena-Marie Vida, Emilie Engkrog
- Catering: NjokobokThe project is funded by KORO – Public Art Norway, with additional support from Munch- og Vigeland stipend, Oslo kommunes kunst og kulturstipend; Fotogalleriet; and kunstnerassistentordningen, Arts Council Norway.
The project was directed by Sara Eliassen and developed in collaboration with: Antonio Cataldo, artistic director at Fotogalleriet. Krister Wallström, Public Art Norway. Kristine Jærn Pilgaard, independent curator . Magnus Holmen, artist assistant and project coordinator. Jan Verwoert, writer.
The project wishes to thank: Oslo Sporveier and Geir Wilhelm Røer.
Under the Park was a site-specific project scheduled for the night of 16 October 2021, where artists, writers and audiences were invited into a series of nightly invocations in Valkyrie plass, a metro station active from 1928 to 1985. For one night, from the last train passing until the first train appeared the following day, Valkyrie plass was transformed into a temporary autonomous zone through a collective orchestrated event. The night awakened the transient, and the underground site was used to explore how ideology normalizes through images and screen technologies. The night called for screen material to be used to counter dominant histories in order to build futures that are not built upon dysfunctional pasts. The epicentre for the night, was the site-specific zoetrope installation Do I Accept that the Future is Looped? connecting the site and the themes of the night to unresolved aspects of the writing of Norwegian history and art history.
Video Edit: Chelsea Knight. Video documentation: Cirenia Escobedo Esquivel and Richard Aall