Ingrid Book & Carina Heden: Norwegian Representation, 26a Bienal de Sao Paulo
25 September-19 December 2004
Quilombos nr. 16, News from the field, Copyright Book & Heden, 2004
Norwegian Representation
26a Bienal de Sao Paulo, 25 September-19 December 2004 The Field / O Campo
Artists: Ingrid Book & Carina Heden
Commissioner: Ute Meta Bauer / Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Publication: The newspaper News from the Field / Noticias Do Campo
Edited by Ingrid Book & Carina Heden
Published by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Co-published by Hong Kong Press, Oslo 2004
48 pages, colour, English / Portuguese
Edition of 43.000 copies for free release
The current work of Oslo-based artists Ingrid Book & Carina Heden constitutes a space in which social practices usually considered in terms of their separate institutional affiliations – art museums, urbanism, cultivation, gardening and landscape traditions, and finance – are offered as components of a larger discursive network.
The exhibited project The Field / O Campo consists of the following components:
The photo series Food 1-4 marks the starting point of Book & Heden’s allotment gardens project “Ovre Smestad Parsellhager” (“Upper Smestad Allotment Gardens”), that is located in the small town of Lillehammer (Norway). Book & Heden had discovered a parking lot whose edges had been occupied by a few Bosnian families growing vegetables. The need for a green spot to cultivate vegetables close to home forced the artists to engage in negotiating land within Lillehammer to offer citizens of that northern town access to small parcels of land, as part of a public art project.
Recent urban developments including an influx of refugees and other forms of immigration transform the traditional city / landscape relationship addressed in this photo series. These developments became the point of departure for Book & Heden’s The Field / O Campo, the Norwegian contribution to the 26a Bienal de Sao Paulo. The photographs from the series The Field 1-6 were taken in front of the mountain Balbergkampen. With their differences in light, clouds and colours, they refer to the Nordic tradition of Romantic landscape painting. A video projection screens the 100 year old painting “Potetho sting” (“Potato Harvest”) by the Norwegian painter Kristian Haug (1862-1953) in its original size. The video was taken during the course of one day with changing daylight in the Lillehammer Art Museum. Shot at a fixed camera angle, it shows the harvesting of potatoes on the grounds that are today the above-mentioned allotment gardens.
The soundscape for the installation is a recording of everyday noises such as visitor’s footsteps, voices and coughs from many directions, that are particularly characteristic for the open architecture of the exhibition hall in Lillehammer Art Museum.
The newspaper News from the Field / Noticias do Campo, printed in a high edition for free distribution, is an integral part of the installation and turned out to be a meeting place between farming in cities today and the collective memory, the archive. News from the Field / Noticias do Campo brings together a multitude of voices by sociologists, biologists, architects, writers, NGOs and artists addressing issues of urban agriculture and the politics of landownership ea. outlined in categories such as “World”, “Regional Brazil”, “Society”, “Science”, “Business”, “Cartoons”, “Sport”. News from the Field / Noticias do Campo includes texts by Ina Blom, Ingrid Book & Carina Heden, Tjeerd Deelstra / Herbert Girardet, ETC group, Boris Groys, Helge Hiram Jensen, David Loffler, Hettie Pisters, Matteo Poli, Charlotte Pruth, Michael Wilkens ea.
The Field / O Campo is a multilayered installation involving different media as well as a trans-disciplinary approach introducing artistic practice as a method of knowledge production matching the complexity of the questions raised. The artists here are making a shift from the museum as the former archive to urban agriculture as one form of a potential future archive.
For further information and/or images please contact Ole Slyngstadli, Head of information, e-mail: os@oca.no, or download from www.oca.no
The official Norwegian contribution to the 26a Bienal de Sao Paulo is coordinated and funded by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway with funds provided by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs, the National Touring Exhibitions Norway and the Norwegian Photographic Fund.
The newspaper was realized with extra funding by the “Official Development Assistance” from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Arts Council Norway.