1 place 33 rooms – Portrait of a house

Christine Petersen

1 place 33 rooms “Memory, including collective memory, is linked to houses. When we eradicate a place in the exterior world, we lose a major pathway into our own history.” Lena Lindgren, Morgenbladet, 2. November 2012 The project is based on a real place, a house in Oslo. I am interested in how our memory connects with places and houses, in expanding our understanding of what a house and a place are, seen from the perspective of our own cultural background, time and history – and in the perceptions and experiences that are associated with it. In the significance of how the rooms are organised in relation to each other and what happens if the room is freed from the context in which it stands. It is rare to experience an isolated room that doesn’t relate to anything else, torn from its place, time and spatial context. The neutral room simply doesn’t exist. A key aspect of architecture is the experience of going from one room to another. The way the rooms are organised in relation to each other affects the sense of what it is like to be in the house. From the starting point that architecture begins with a single room, I have explored what criteria a space has to fulfil to be called a room and how big it has to be. Everyone relates to rooms – whether it is a private room like a bedroom, kitchen, dining room, or a public space such as a café, library or railway station. The work comprises six physical installations, plus the book and archive “33 fortellinger” (33 stories).

I ”33 rom som ikke finnes” har jeg ønsket å synliggjøre forholdet mellom min opplevelse, mitt minne om rommet og den oppmålte planen. Gjennom en serie håndtegninger utforsker jeg dette forholdet. Etter at jeg hadde tegnet opp alle rommene etter hukommelsen i bildet ”1 sted 33 rom”, målte og tegnet jeg dem nøyaktig opp. Tegningene viser det oppmålte rommet og minnet av rommet lagt over hverandre. Ved å jobbe med forholdet mellom min opplevelse, minnet og den faktiske størrelsen, ønsket jeg og synliggjøre arealet som oppstår i møtet mellom de to: Rommet som ikke finnes. De malte rosa flatene viser minnet av rommet. Den røde fargen viser den faktiske størrelsen.

Jeg jobber med rom som ikke lengre finnes. Spor av minner. Svart desember natt utenfor arbeidsvinduet og jeg maler bort veggene som finnes med hvitmaling, slik at kun restene fra min hukommelse står igjen.

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