Taking inspiration from the name of a dystopian sci-fi novel carried by the landscape artist Robert Smithson, a monumental exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall draws together the work of more than three dozen artists and collectives. The selection of works alludes to the interconnectedness between art, space, nature and human intervention — debates which hold particular urgencies in the Nordic context. We speak to Axel Wieder, Director of Bergen Kunsthall and co-curator of the exhibition together with Silja Leifsdottir, to learn more.
KOOZ Written almost 60 years ago, Earthworks is a dystopian science fiction novel set in a world of environmental catastrophe and extreme socio-economic inequality. In what ways was the novel a cautionary tale and how did this inform and influence your exhibition of the same name?
AXEL WIEDER The novel Earthworks (1965), written by Brian Aldiss, indeed had an inspirational role for our exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall — but the story is a bit more complicated. We first encountered the title through the American artist Robert Smithson, who had been working since the 1960s with large-scale environmental installations — often utilising natural materials like earth and rocks, both within and outside of traditional art contexts. After reading it, Smithson used the expression "earthworks" to describe his own work; eventually, it became a broadly used artistic category, pointing on the one hand to the materiality of many of the works by Smithson and colleagues that involve manipulation, collaboration and interaction with nature and the earth's surface, but also the dystopian, critical tone in Aldiss' novel.
Smithson used the expression 'earthworks' to describe his own work; eventually, it became a broadly used artistic category, pointing to the materiality of many of the works that involve manipulation, collaboration and interaction with nature and the earth's surface.
We used the title in this open sense: a description of artistic work that engages both with the materiality as well as the environmental politics within our environment. In addition, we wanted to point to an understanding of "work" in a more general sense — not just as artworks, but the everyday work in caring for our planet and all its habitants, human and non-human, that depend on its well-being. One of the artists involved in the programme of the exhibition, Elin Már Øyen Vister, described the urgency of this term specifically in relation to the struggles of indigenous Sámi people in the Northern Scandinavian peninsula for example: in the area historically called Sápmi, for whom such work is existential and not a choice; that is, to maintain an environment that is essential for their self-determination.
KOOZ The exhibition explores the role of art in the history of ecological resistance movements in the Nordic countries. How does this work sit in relation to the romantic tradition of Norwegian landscape painting and the images of coastal and mountain landscapes which are a pillar of the national identity of the country and its marketing campaigns?
AW I do think that there's a direct connection between the romantic landscape painters —, Peder Balke, say, or Johan Christian Dahl, both active in the early 19th century — and current artistic discourses that engage with nature in Norway. It would be too easy to reduce it to a regional tendency, even though that's perhaps true in a context that was relatively isolated for centuries. But a more important connection is the fact that nature has such a significant role within the sociopolitical imaginary of the North. For the 19th century painters, images of coastal and mountain landscapes offered an opportunity to develop a specific thematic and formal focus or character within their work, in tune with the national thirst for independence from the century-long subjugation under our Nordic neighbours Denmark and Sweden.
Nature was always a key trope in the quest for a national identity that worked both as an imagination of a past and a future, and we see these powerful tropes still very much present today.
Dahl painted the peaks of the Sognefjord and other recognisable Norwegian beauty spots into an impressive and turbulent vision, a northern Arcadia. Balke was drawn to the far North — to ice floes, tossing seas, vertiginous cliffs, a coldly indifferent motherland. Nature was always a key trope in the quest for a national identity that worked both as an imagination of a past and a future, and we see these powerful tropes still very much present today. Advertisements for tourism or Nordic products are full of images of cloudy forests and fjords: some of my favourite examples are from the food industry, celebrating the beauty and what is experienced as raw quality of nature in Norway. There is a darker side to this relationship, which is the economic relevance of the exploitation of natural resources, from oil and gas to farmed salmon. Norway, in its current state, is economically dependent on these industries and the so-called "green shift" is re-locating rather than solving the problem.
In many works of contemporary artists, the critique of extraction, exploitation and the attendant impact on the environment is an angle for critical perspectives on social and political topics.
While these destructive tendencies seem in some ways contradictory to beautiful images of remote landscapes, they're in other ways also very connected as part of a similar dependency on nature as a resource. In many works of contemporary artists, the critique of extraction, exploitation and the attendant impact on the environment is an angle for critical perspectives on social and political topics, and many artists were actively engaged in resistance movements, both in the past and the present. In our exhibition, we have included for example documents and traces from the so-called Mardøla aksjonen (The Mardøla Action), a series of protests in the summer of 1970 in Eikesdal in Møre og Romsdal, that marked a pioneering stand against hydroelectric development and is still seen as a pioneering act on non-violent activism. The well-known nature philosophers Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng and Arne Næss have also been part of this movement. A recent and important example is the protest against a large-scale field of wind turbines in Fovsen or Fosen — historic Sámi land — which destroys traditional living and herding practices.
KOOZ At a moment when ecological questions — and their relation to questions of social justice and colonial conditions — are becoming increasingly pressing, what do these artworks ultimately tell us about our changing relationship to nature?
AW The questions that are at stake are large in scale; they require in-depth work and action in many areas and from many parts of society. As an exhibition and in an artistic context, it feels important both not to overestimate or to underestimate the potential of art works. On the one hand, we were very interested in how discussions on ecology and environmental activism resonate in art works; what kinds of discussions they spark and what ways of working they create. There is a shift towards collective ways of working, amongst artists and in collaborations; this is often also found in longer, self-determined timeframes and across collaborations with non-human actors too. The exhibition includes many projects which work with horses, worms, fungi, or materials as collaborators — they participate with their own agency and co-determine how the results look, sound or smell.
There is a shift towards collective ways of working, amongst artists and in collaborations; this is often also found in longer, self-determined timeframes and across collaborations with non-human actors too.
There is also an acknowledgement of the importance of the multiplicity of layers of politics — from a personal perspective to projects with a larger scale. For example, the proposal for a National Park located in the Vaara-Kainuu area, which the Mustarinda Association is working on, or the vision of a food forest that would feed the whole city of Bergen, proposed by Lars Holdhus and Matskogen Landås. On the other hand, we wanted to show in the exhibition, and with such works, how art can be useful as a tool for a political discussion. Our work at the Kunsthall is, generally speaking,opening our spaces — beautiful, traditional galleries, events spaces, a café and a bookshop — towards social debates and a broader part of public life; to materialise a vision of art as a forum for discourse. In the end, the works in the exhibition encourage us to look more carefully, to take materiality seriously, to understand ourselves as part of our environment and to care for everything we share this world with.
KOOZ A number of the works rely on photography and video. Can you comment on how these formats increasingly mediate our contact with the natural environment and what the effect might be of this constant mediation?
AW There are indeed some works made as photographs and videos — some crucial works for the exhibition, such as Sissel Mutale Bergh's film Elmie (2023) or a slideshow with images from the Fovsen/Fosen protests in Oslo by Jannik Abel, which is presented on an iPad. Both these projects document active protest movements: in the case of Bergh's film, we see the wind turbines and the use of land in reindeer herding through compelling images. It was important to have anchors into such realities in the exhibition space, in a mediated and reflected way. But we were very careful to juxtapose such works with others that carry a materiality and that bring an experiential quality – not just visually, but also addressing other senses, such as smell, even humidity – into the galleries, which is challenging for an arts organisation. Two works in the exhibition require watering throughout the exhibition period, for instance.
We structured the exhibition as an open narrative, or a mapping, in which we hope that the topics connect and develop in the minds of visitors, who would bring in their own experiences.
KOOZ The exhibition embraces a multiplicity of viewpoints, with works by visual artists, writers and activists as well as including documentary material from the earliest examples and recent generations of what is today known as Land Art. How are their diverse narratives woven together and juxtaposed against one another through the galleries?
AW We avoided a linear-historical or a geographical narrative. While one part of the exhibition deals specifically with Norwegian histories, we also included artists from other neighbouring contexts — not least since there is certainly a regional connection in artists’ practices and thematics. The exhibition spaces are built around clusters on themes such as Collaboration and Resistance, sometimes with direct references between art works. For instance, to juxtapose artworks from Norwegian Land Art that employ walking with a contemporary work by Jon Benjamin Tallerås, who also walks but more as a research practice to understand environmental use. We structured the exhibition in this sense as an open narrative, or a mapping, in which we hope that the topics connect and develop in the minds of visitors, who would bring in their own experiences.
“Earthworks”, 2024. Jon Benjamin Tallerås. To the left: Basic Form (one. DD), 2023. Courtesy of the artist. To the right: 11.05.2016 (02:14 - 03:56), 2017. Private collection. Installation photo from Bergen Kunsthall. Photo: Thor Brødreskift
KOOZ Our last issue, titled Fair Play, asked institutions to reflect upon what playing fair meant from them and what standards they are setting. What message does this exhibition seek to mediate and what do you hope to be its impact?
AW On the notion of playing fair, I would have to think about institutional practices that go far beyond our programme output: our relationship to visitors (or users, participants), our relationship internally, and our relationship to our context, including the footprints that we're creating. I hope that the exhibition continues these questions in a specific thematic exploration.
Bio
Axel Wieder is a curator and writer and since 2018 director of Bergen Kunsthall. He has been director of Index – the Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in Stockholm (2014–2018), where he organized solo exhibitions with Simone Forti, Stephen Willats, Sidesel Meineche Hansen, Willem de Rooij and Anna Boghiguian and a collaborative project by John Skoog and Emanuel Röhss. He’s also been Head of Programme at Arnolfini in Bristol (2012–2014). Wieder studied art history and cultural theory at the University of Cologne and the Humboldt University in Berlin. Together with Jesko Fezer and Katja Reichard, he founded Pro qm in Berlin 1999, a bookstore and a venue for experimental events in the field of art and urbanism. He has also held lecturing posts at various universities and art academies, including the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, lectured internationally, and published numerous books and contributions to catalogues, anthologies and magazines, such as Texte zur Kunst, Frieze, Mousse, and Spike.
Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.
Cover image: Bård Breivik, 23 Level (Snowballs), 1970. Med tillatelse fra Kode — Kunstmuseene i Bergen
