- 01

Eamon O’Kane (IE)

Portal Stone, 2022

Animation

Passage series, 2022

Portal Stone|Portal Stone is an animation that presents the entrance stone to the Newgrange Unesco world heritage monument in the Boyne Valley, Ireland. 

Chamber|Chamber is a video work that was made performatively in the gallery space with a combination of projection and silkscreen frames. It explores the stone carvings in the interiors of Newgrange, Ireland and sandstone caves in Fontainebleau, France. 

Passage series|Passage Series is a sequence of silkscreen prints exploring stone carvings in the interiors of Newgrange, Ireland and sandstone caves in Fontainebleau, France.

Eamon O’Kane (Ireland), Visual artist, professor at the Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. 

Living in Bergen and Odense.

- 02

Theodor Barth (NO)

La Kahina, 2022

Lineup: white & black board, photo (1962), photogravure, prints in terra d’ombra, smoke-black and Prussian blue; mounted w/plexiglass and painted wing-screws.

La Kahina | La Kahina is a lineup featuring a display from an ongoing investigation. The lineup is similar to a detective board but without a crime to solve. Rather the possibility of a crime lies in bringing the exhibits of an ongoing investigation to public view: a display of a photogravure based on a photo shot in Brooklyn, 1962. The lineup seeks to query and establish a visibility between archival storage and -retrieval: the wing-screws can be removed, and the order of the elements changed. Photogravure is here used to reveal a photo down to the contents from the moments of the take. The light-conditions, the physiologies performing the light-conditions—making their claims before and behind the camera—the chemistry of the emulsion and the development of the print. Photogravure features a studio-production of what archaeological excavation does in the field: the itinerancy of gestures in a process of discovery alternates between technical and sensorial detection through a myriad of small operations; as well as between studio- and fieldwork.

The lineup is part of an investigation into the life of a couple working for the Norwegian Foreign Service—La Kahina and her husband K—using conjointly methods of archaeology and artistic research. The lineup is part of a reflective apparatus including 71 diaries and diplomatic texts.

Acknowledgements to: Prof. Jan Pettersson and Enrique Guadarrama Solis (MA), for introductions to photogravure. Artistic research fellow Bjørn Blikstad for cadmium/pattern red.

Theodor Barth (Norway), Dr. Philos. in anthropology, professor of theory and writing at the Design dpt. of Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO). He was accepted for a research residency at the Norwegian National Library to work on the project Troll i ord—indekserte beretninger fra et diplomathjem: en avhendigelse. Living in Oslo.

- 03

Petro Cecilia Keene (SA)

Research project on the legacy of the artist Agnes Susanne Schulz (Leipzig 1892 – 1973)

Inkjet photos of Agnes Schulz herself and her paintings (copies) of prehistoric rock paintings in Scandinavia.

A fundamental aspect of rhythm is movement and conscious awareness thereof being the ebb and flow of our existence as in the rhythm of our breath. In prehistoric rock paintings visual expressions in lustrous hues of ochre pigments create a sense of rhythm in many different forms with illustrations of fascinating depictions – a rhythmical movement of animals, humans, geometrics and obscure images.

The remarkable life of German artist, Agnes Schulz may be viewed in terms of the concept of rhythm or, indeed, Tracing Rhythms. Schulz was no doubt captivated by the beauty and masterfulness of prehistoric rock art.  Her remarkable devotion to copying rock paintings with her numerous field trips while transporting her palette of colours and artist’s paraphernalia of paper, pen and brush has resulted in a rich legacy of exquisite watercolour paintings- including those of the expeditions to southern Africa (1928 to 1930) and Scandinavia (1934-1935). Her method of copying rock art was inspired and influenced by German ethnologist, Leo Frobenius who in Africa encouraged his artist companions to capture the essence of the spirit of the art. 

Agnes Susanne Schulz was born on 6 October, 1892 in Leipzig where she trained as an artist.  Schulz formed part of the team of artists associated with the Frobenius Institute from 1923 until her retirement in 1957. During her time there, then known as the Forschungsinstitut für Kulturmorphologie (the Research Institute for Cultural Morphology) in Munich, Schulz produced an impressive number of over 700 rock art paintings and around 450 ethnographic images.  

Her expansive fieldwork in Scandinavia (1934 to 1935) as well as in Africa and Australia, have resulted in a significant contribution to the Frobenius Institute’s collections. Schulz, after her schooling, spent six years at the Royal Academy for Graphics and Book Trade (Königliche Akademie für Graphik und Buchgewerbe), today, the Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst ) which was founded in 1764 where she held a keen interest in wood engraving and woodcuts as illustration techniques. In 1917, she moved to Ebenhausen near Munich, where she developed her own artistic work and carried out art history studies at the Bavarian State Library. In August 1923, Schulz began her Institute activity as the first scientific draughtswoman for Frobenius. After the end of the First World War, the ethnologist, Leo Frobenius moved to the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich with the “Afrika-Archiv” which he had renamed the Research Institute for Cultural Morphology (Forschungsinstitut für Kulturmorphologie) around 1923. 

It is remarkable that Schulz had undertaken the Scandinavian expedition on her own for a period of five months. The paintings of engraving sites were created on large canvases  and are stored in the pictorial storage facility of the Frobenius Institute. At the time of her expedition Schulz was 42 years old. These exquisite artworks have rarely been displayed in exhibitions.  

There are 526 photographs by Agnes Schulz of rock engraving and painted sites on the Frobenius Institute digital archive website. The photographs pertain to her sole expedition of 1934 to 1935 in Sweden and Norway.  Interestingly, Schulz also formed part of the team of artists who had accompanied  Leo Frobenius to southern Africa in 1928 to 1930 which resulted in a collection of over 1100 field copies  (watercolour paintings), many in large-scale formats. Schulz copied not only paintings of rock art sites, but also engravings. Remarkably, the artists from the southern African expedition continued to record and paint rock art imagery for the remainder of their lives in different regions of the world.

From the mid-1960s, Agnes Susanne Schulz lived in the holiday home of her colleague Elisabeth Pauli in Capoliveri on the island of Elba. Agnes Schulz died on December 25, 1973, two years after the publication of her last major Australian work.

Petro Cecilia Keene (South Africa), archaeologist and independent researcher, loosely affiliated with SFF Centre for Early Sapiens (SapienCE), University of Bergen. 

Living in South-Africa

- 04

Geir Harald Samuelsen (NO)

Enter Sandstone, 2022

Rhythmical Sound Installation

Haptic Drawing (Folded), 2022

Metallic paint, Magnesium and Pastel on paper

Enter Sandstone | Enter Sandstone is a performative (musical) sound piece that takes you into the interior of a Gogotte, a sandstone found in Fontainebleau, France. 

The piece is a composition that consists of several layers of rhythmical soundscapes recorded inside and outside of the stone. A small microphone is placed inside a hole in the stone, a man-made microscopic cave, and two microphones record in stereo from the outside. A piece of flint is used to trace the surface of the Gogotte, recording the sound of the topography and of the different textures of the stone, making it into a joint composition between the Gogotte and the artist. 

A gogotte is a naturally shaped sandstone concretion, consisting of tiny quartz fragments held together by calcium carbonate. The finest specimens are found in Fontainebleau, France, renowned for its extremely fine-grained, porcelain-like sands, and each of these natural mineralogical works of art take on unique forms, often evoking clouds, whirlwinds, animals, or ghosts or like an underground mushroom. It is created by sand and silicate, and it is shaped by slow flowing water. It is a small-scale resemblance of the huge sandstone boulders that is scattered around above ground in this forest. 

During the Mesolithic period the population in this area used the caves and shelters underneath these big boulders as boards for abstract, geometric engravings made with flint. 

Enter Sandstone is an artistic re-enactment of these engraving gestures. 

Geir Harald Samuelsen (Norway), leader of the project: Matter, Gesture and Soul. Visual artist, PhD, associate professor, and researcher at the Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. 

Living in Oslo

- 05

Dragoş Gheorghiu (RO)

Mihaela Moțăianu (RO)

THE RHYTHM OF BREATHING, COLOURING, AND LIGHTING

EXPERIMENTING PALAEOLITHIC CAVE ART

“I can say that the flame animates and reveals an image to the artist and ‘audience’ in the same sense a live performance does. This contrasts a popular presumption of cave art as being created primarily for an end product. I began to become acutely aware of this relationship as I blew the color toward the stone wall as

shown in the pictures. In order to illuminate the place where the color was to be applied, the light source had to be very close both to the wall and the blowing tube. In those moments the flame reacted violently to each exhalation that forcibly emitted air, sounds and color. I found that the movement of the flame materializes the performer's breath not only for the artist but with the artist as performer for his audience as well. In the same sense as any performance, it is fascinating to watch the unity created between the human breath and the movement of the flame, especially as the flame approaches and then departs with each inspiration and

expiration. The fire becomes at this moment a revealer of the vital principle of life—i.e. the breathing—and of the colors and sounds. “

Dragoş Gheorghiu, 2021, Experimenting prehistoric art. Animated sounds, colours and flames, Pleistocene Coalition News, Vol. 13, issue 3, p. 8-9.

Dragoş Gheorghiu (Romania), professor of cultural anthropology, DoctoralSchool, National University of Arts in Bucharest and Instituto Terra e Memória - Mação, Centro de Geociências da Universidade de Coimbra.

Living in Romania, Bucharest

Mihaela Moțăianu (Romania) is a Photographer and Senior Art Director. She is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies and an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Design Department at the National University of Arts Bucharest.

- 06

Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE)

Histories of Memories I, 2022

Silicon wafer, printed circuit boards (PCB), brain coral, glass trade beads, shells, resistors and various electrical components under plexiglass CCTV dome. 

35 x 35 x 20 cm

Histories of Memories II, 2022

Silicon wafer, printed circuit boards (PCB), brain coral, glass trade beads, shells, resistors and various electrical components under plexiglass CCTV dome. 

35 x 35 x 20 cm

Histories of Memories I & II consist of an assemblage of various elements that represent the history of memory. Through the development of mathematics and binary code in Africa, writing and other technologies of remembering and memory storage eventually emerged.

Maarten Vanden Eynde (Belgium) 

Artist and co-founder of Enough Room for Space 

Maarten Vanden Eynde graduated in 2000 from the free media department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL), participated in 2006 in the experimental MSA^ Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles (US) and finished a post graduate course in 2009 at HISK Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent (BE) where he is a regular guest tutor. Since 2020 he is a PhD candidate at the UiB / University of Bergen in Norway. In 2017 he was nominated for the first Belgian Art Prize and won the Public Prize. 

- 08

Åsil Bøthun (NO)

The Physics of Grief, I, II, III, 2021 

Concrete and aluminum

Through fragments originating from personal belongings, these works reflect repeated attempts to anchor memories from the past to present concrete objects. The elements have their sources from a number of inherited objects such as books, clothes and other personal items. The objects are packed in suitcases and other containers used for transportation and thereafter gone through numerous processes casting them in concrete. The casts materialize a distance to the original objects, here one can also glimpse remaining fragments from the original elements. As support and to the concrete objects, a series of wooden pieces casted in recycled aluminum functions as plinths. They are copies of the wooden construction of the stand underneath a terrella, a scientific structure that can simulate the earth’s magnetic field. One can sense the wooden pieces, together with the traces of personal objects as silent witnesses to the story of the scientist Kristian Birkeland, one of the founders of Norsk Hydroelektrisk Kvælstofaktieselskap (today Norsk Hydro), who lost all his possessions in a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. The works appear as physical echoes and sensed history, manifested in objects that can remind one of a place with remains and traces from the past.

These works were initially made for an exhibition at Rådhusgaten 20 in Oslo, where Birkelands company was founded in 1905.

Bøthun has for many years worked with material transformation processes involving copying and tracing as recurring themes. She often asks questions about hierarchies of values and how people link these to everyday objects

Åsil Bøthun is a professor of sculpture and installation and currently the Vice Dean of education at The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen. 

Living in Bergen

- 07

Elin Tanding Sørensen (NO)

Somnifera, 2022

Composition of objects from the artistic research process: gilded dandelion leaves and root (Taraxacum Officinale), honey, poppy seeds (Papaver somniferum), dor beetle, a series of ink prints on rice paper, red oxidized magnetite from Rana Gruver, stones, and pieces of asphalt from the shore

Somnifera | Somnifera addresses the opium poppy's abundant quantity of narratives, in a society where we are alienated from the cycles of nature; such as life/death, the raw materials of life and species' own life stories. As much as we originate from the same matter, we are disconnected from our unquestionable interwovenness with nature. Since the dawn of time, we have milked the benefits of the opium plant, while politics, religion and a cynical multinational drug and pharmaceutical industry have assigned the plant a controversial role on the world stage. The plant's power to both save life and take life is the essence of this art project with the intention to contribute to a holistic debate about the opium poppy's potential: To lift it out of the shadow of condemnation and give it its rightful bright place among us.

The artwork flows between dream and reality where astrological consultations and ecstatic trance experiences are part of an artistic research process in which today's imaginary world is intertwined with antiquity and prehistoric times. To guide the artistic process, the artist uses re-enactment inspired by experimental archaeology, when she transforms herself into a three-thousand-year-old figurine «The Poppy Goddess and Patron of Healing.»

The knowledge-harvesting is materialized in a visual collection of poppy recipes based on ethnobotanical knowledge from various parts of the world.

The artwork is co-created with artistic addiction therapist Märtha Soline. Video recorded by Cristián Weidmann Cabrera and Petro Keene. Microscope photos of poppy seeds and petals by Lene Cecilie Hermansen, Imaging Centre NMBU. Thanks to Karsten Benjamin Ekhougen Larsen for help with installing the artwork. Supported by Arts Council Norway. 

Elin Tanding Sørensen (Norway), visual artist, landscape architect and independent researcher. Ph.D. in Marine Landscape Architecture from the Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Living at Nesodden