Excerpt from the letter of invitation:
What is at stake? – Closed workshop
When: Monday 1st November, 2010, at 15 to 16.30
Location: Kunsthall Oslo
What: The workshop What is at stake is initiated on the basis of the exhibition project Common Lands – Allmannaretten encountering their investigations in Oslo. As part of the artistic and curatorial process we want to open up for reflection on how Bjørvika stands today, and be more direct: asking questions, open up for reflection and get answers.
Who: Invited participants include: Therese Staal Brekke (PBE), Eva Hagen (Hav Eiendom AS), Gry Kleven (Sørenga AS), Thor Thoeneie (OSU), Knut Even Lindsjørn (SV / City Council), Ingrid Lønningdal (artist) Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk (Kunsthall Oslo), Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen (artists), Anne Beate Hovind (Bjørvika AS), Karolin Tampere and Åse Løvgren (curators of the project Common Lands-Allmannaretten).
Background:
Through different ongoing and changing formates, Common Lands-Allmannaretten have used the processes og the city development in Oslo to investigate questions around urbanisation, democracy, accessability and distribution of power. Common Lands aimed to relate to similar processes that are happening in post industrial cities, where re-defining and transformation of waterfronts are a current tendency. The former harbours – meeting points between land and water, where cities originally were founded, are today more often re-developed into spaces for living, recreation, and culture consumption. Similar processes have been going on in neighbouring cities to Oslo like Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Hamburg.
Since the project is a pilot for BU’s commitment to art in Bjørvika, with Kunsthall Oslo as the second step and Slow Space by Claire O´Doherty as the third, we have decided to use this opportunity to take an investigative approach to the topic, and believe that it is important that the results of the investigations are communicated to the players that are central to the processes of power in Oslo. With this workshop we want to convey that we have worked with, how artists have invested in the area and what they considered important, problematic or interesting.
The workshop will be documented through a report that will be available on www.commonlands.net (in norwegian only).
