The international group exhibition Between Rivers at the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo brings together twelve contemporary artists whose work responds to the importance of rivers to the functioning of our planet and society at a time when they are being profoundly reshaped by human activity. Using a wide range of materials – from photography and video to sound, performance and installation – the artists in the exhibition explore the cultural, social and environmental meanings of rivers through practices that range in scale from the intimate to the monumental. The exhibition opens on October 18, 2024.
Image above: Hicham Berrada, Mesk-Ellil, 2015-2019, Installation view ‘Luogo e Segni’ im Punta della Dogana, 2019, Courtesy the artist and kamel mennour, Paris/London, © ADAGP Hicham Berrada, © Palazzo Grassi, Foto: Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti
The exhibition Between Rivers takes place at a crucial time for Norway, as the move away from fossil fuels and the changing energy policy in Europe due to the war in Ukraine raises the question of whether and how certain natural resources are used. The oil industry is still the engine of the Norwegian economy, but hydropower is the backbone of Norway’s energy transition. Although renewable energy is essential to this transition, it has had a negative impact on Sámi communities in the past, dating back at least to the Alta controversy in the late 1970s.
Participating artists:
Marjetica Potrč, Hicham Berrada, Zoe Leonard, Senga Nengudi, Alex Ayed, James Webb, Lala Rukh, Thao Nguyen Phan, Anna Boghiguian, …
more to be announced soon
Rivers have been an important subject for artists since at least the nineteenth century and have been at the heart of significant developments in fields as diverse as ecology and conservation, political organization and activism, and the built environment and architecture.
The artists represented in the exhibition propose new ways of reading and imagining rivers. Although many of the works are characterized by modes of expression characteristic of each artist’s practice – perhaps unsurprising given the challenge of representing a subject that is always in motion and constantly changing form – they are nevertheless linked by the image, experience or process of a river. Several of the works make direct reference to the world’s major river systems, tracing and documenting their course to raise questions about territory and identity, the remnants and lingering effects of colonial history, and the impact of contemporary agricultural techniques.
Other practices respond more obliquely to the theme, using the movement of a river as a methodology for creating new work, including new commissions for this exhibition. Several works exploit the poetic and imaginative possibilities of the theme, suggesting permeable, generous and interdependent relationships with nature. Finally, the material of a river and what accumulates near it – its liquid body, the soil on its banks and the plants that grow in that soil – form the material of some installations and sculptural objects.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Friday, October 18, 2024 – Sunday, January 12, 2025
Opening hours: Friday – Wednesday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Thursday, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
WHERE?
Astrup Fearnley Museet
Strandpromenaden 2
0252 Oslo
Norway
