Exhibition opening Thursday 18 August at 6-8pm.
Between the 19th of August and the 9th of October, Tegnerforbundet presents the exhibition "Utopia", featuring drawing, painting, video, installation and sculpture. The exhibition presents work by seven artists who in various ways touch on the notion of a utopia. The works shown reflect on our present and future, by raising questions related to climate, identity and archi-tecture. The exhibition is curated by Mari Kanstad Johnsen, Marit Victoria Wulff Andreassen and Viktor Pedersen.
Participating artists: Andreas Lærum, Hedvig Lien Rytter, Ingrid Torvund, JinBin Chen Tianyi, Linda Soh Trengereid, Ottar Karlsen and Qi Tan.
The Utopian as an antithesis to contemporary challenges
Faced with the challenges of our time, such as war, the threat of nuclear incidents, a pande-mic, the mass extinction of species and climate crisis, we may dives wiftly into dystopian thin-king. The apocalypse is no longer just a concept from the world of sci-fi, it is something we feelon our bodies. The chasm of economic, political and environmental discrepancies in the globalcommunity differentiate us and breed disagreement, but conflicts can also give rise to change.Faced with a bleak situation, what should be changed becomes apparent. It clarifies what kind of society would be the most favorable, what improvements could be carried out or how we want to exist. We are led to the antithesis of dystopia; Utopia.
Utopia : Between Eutopia and Outopia
Utopia is a term used to define an idealistic society, which provides essentially perfect living conditions for those included in it. The word "Utopia" is made up of two Greek words and is initself an ambiguous term. Eutopia refers to a pleasant place we would want to go to, while ou-topia refers to a place that does not exist. We most often find utopias within fiction, especiallyin sci-fi, where the narrative centers around futuristic societies trying to overcome the issues that afflict the world today.Historically, the term is associated with political attempts to foundnew social systems based on equality, common property and social harmony.
The Utopian in art
Utopias are often written off as naive fantasies. Nevertheless, the notion of the utopian is central to the work of many artists, writers, philosophers and architects.Trying to visualize thefuture is fundamentally human. We build experience, make plans and strive to prevent unfor-tunate events from reoccurring. Through art, humans try to capture the incomprehensible, to establish points of contact with what is invisible, but can still be intuited. Art can demonstrate not only what we are, but also what we potentially should be. By using utopian thinking as a tool, in spite of social and individual differences, we may be ableto create, assess and visualize the idea ofa future, ideal world.
Photo: Linda Soh Trengereid. "The Garden Edge # 2", 2020, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 110 x 100 cm.
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Files:
Participating artists - Norwegian/ English
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Event program during the exhibition period:
Thursday 25 August at 5-6pm: Energy balancing with crystal balls. Instructor: Tove Moss. Find out more.
Friday 16 September (Oslo Culture Night) at 7-8pm: Performance with Gn00r. Find out more.
Sunday 18 September (Oslo Art Weekend) at 2-3pm: Curator's tour. Find out more.
Wednesday 28 September, at 17:30: Lecture on the project La Ciudad Abierta /Open City, by Nicolas Ibaceta and Manuel Florencio Sanfuentes. Open City is an experimental, architectural settlement in Chile (more info to come).
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