3.5
Pop-up exhibition by the MA1 students from MAPS
30.04.2023 – 22.07.2023
Welcome to a pop-up show and presentation hosted by Jessica Williams in the year-long project (be)longing with Shiyu Arys Wu, Belén Santillán, Katja Schia and Carolina Vásquez. MA1 students from Master in Art and Public Space at Oslo National Academy of the Arts are exhibiting new individual works with the starting point in a course entitled Hospitality as a tool for artistic practice together with Ebba Moi, currently the head of the program MAPS.
Hospitality refers commonly to the relationship between a host and a guest, and the act of providing guests with their needs. A curatorial situation is always one of hospitality, the artist is invited by someone, a curator or an institution provides for an audience to visit, for making it accessible to people with disabilities, to provide educational materials or programming to enhance the visitor's understanding of the art on display. But in what way can hospitality be a tool in the context of an artistic practice?
This is something we wish to invite you to explore in this popup show made by the students of MA1 at Art and Public Space from the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, (Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo).
Katja Schia (Oslo, Norway)
soft obstacle
An ongoing action and installation that explores how subtle barriers transform space, when they are encountered by bodies.
My ongoing research aims ways of reorganizing space through actions, and traces of actions. My practice is rooted in choreography, drawing, and socially engaged art.
Shiyu Arys Wu (Beijing, China)
drawings of water
Drawings of Water consists of collaborative drawing with water by varied groups of people in public space, exploring the possibility of relationships and connections between self and others, body and movement, space and nature.
Drawings of Water is inspired by "Dishu", which refers to practicing ephemeral Chinese calligraphy on the ground, using clear water as ink. "Dishu" practitioners are mainly retirees, who practice every morning or after dinner at their local public parks and pavements. This practice can be seen as a way of owning the space temporarily. As a "guest" in Moss, I hope to introduce the concept of "Dishu" from my culture background as a bridge of a hospitable conversation.
I cook. I paint. I feed the ducks by the water. I crochet. I read. I nap under the sun. I write poems. I wander around. I am often in a daze. I wonder how the planet can co-exist with the ecology on it. I wonder how human activities and ideologies will continue. I create encounters and situations; I create practices to experience publicness; for myself and others, for human and non-human, for landscape and cityscape, for playfulness and openness, for pause and reflection.
Belén Santillán (Quito, Ecuador)
my name is a place
This workshop plan comes from my experience of how my name signals a very particular place: the South. The South, in the West, is lived in actions like crossing borders, hoping for documents and appointments, rephrasing and repeating oneself (translating), and above all waiting. For Chapter 3.5, we display the workshop’s booklet and invite you to feel the place your name signals.
Hi! If you are reading this, thanks for being curious about us. I am Belén, a first-year Master student from Ecuador, South America. By the way, did you know that tuition fees for non-European students in Norway are being decided now? That means less access for many, less diversity, an endless less. If after this brief statement you are even more curious, please approach me.
Carolina Vásquez (Medellín, Colombia)
the last elephant in Moss
In my work, I explore situations in which we either break or weave our tacit alliance of coexisting alongside our terrestrial co-inhabitants. Through the creation of imaginary worlds, I aim to make visible the unexpected encounters underwritten by human actions. In the project The Last Elephant in Moss the public is invited to reflect on our relationship to nature and reflect on how our actions to make habitats hospitable, in such an anthropocentric manner, can also be hostile to other ways of life. Meet me at the sculpture "Elefanten og Moss" by Linda Bakke, located in Moss Public Space, an Indian Elephant will tell you how it ended up in Norway.
I was born in the country with the most bird biodiversity in the world, our biodiversity richness helps to balance some economic differences and mitigate the horror of armed conflict. Nature and art bring me hope, as a product design engineer I learned to create connections, and as an artist, I aim to bring imaginary worlds to help us to connect and visualize the missed points in our relations with other living beings.
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Documentation images: Tor S. Ulstein / Kunstdok
About MAPS
The transdisciplinary programme Art and Public Space at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo is situated in the intersection between art practice and art theory. It recruits students from various fields of art practice. The programme allows students to explore the role of art in the public space through their own artistic practice and in an international student environment. The core of the programme relates to the development and production of art projects in public spaces, as well as analysis and exploration of art’s encounter with various types of public spaces, reception conditions and social structures.
Earlier this year, in February, MAPS took over the exhibition's reading room for a mini seminar based around the theme of hospitality. The day featured presentations by Ebba Moi, House of Foundation, Jessica Williams, Susanne M. Winterling, Power Ekroth, and Okhiogbe Omonhinmin. Later in the week, the class used the room as a base for exploring potential collaborations in Moss.
Photo credit: Jessica Williams, MAPS
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