MFA degree exhibition 2018: TRAUST

This year’s degree exhibition presents work by 24 graduating students from eleven countries. Five graduating students are from the MFA program Art and Public Space and 19 graduating students are from the MFA program Medium and Material Based Art.

Their exhibition is titled Traust and its main venue is the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. There are also three satellite venues across the city: work can be found on the bank of the Akerselva river close to the school, at Bispegata 16 in The Middelalderparken on the East side of the Bjørvika inlet, and in a private flat at Rostedsgate 16 B in the St. Hanshaugen area.

Throughout the past two years, the students have shared dialogues, thoughts, experiences, stories, and dinners. The exhibition title Traust has been informed by these communal quotidian spaces, democratic environments, and the collective threads shared daily in the art school. It derives from “traustr,” a word in old Norse, a language spoken in Scandinavia between 800 and 1300 AD. The meaning of the word has traveled over time—originally it was an honorable description of someone or something being steadfast or trustworthy while the modern use more often means passé, or quite simply, ordinary.

So, why would a group of art students in Oslo call their degree show Traust? Is it a response to society’s constantly shifting character? Or is this a nod to the English word “trust”? This term is understood to be an agreement in collective decision making, their exhibition being the result.

MFA in Art and Public Space: Rodrigo Ghattas, Nicolas William Hughes, Kjetil Detroit Kristensen, Hege Pålsrud, Ida Uvaas

MFA in Medium and Material Based Art: Lissette Escobar, Sisse Lee, Lena Walton Herfindal, Aleksander Jæger, Allyce Wood, Victoria Duffee, Ida Olesdatter Barland, Olia Gorohova, Chen Zehui, Lucia Cristerna Aragon, Yichun Tang, Atli Graff Pètursson, Marthe Minde, Ida Warholm Bjørken, Helene Therese Duckert, Jessica Brouder, Miriam Colombine Ekeholt, Joanna Knight, Martin Kolsrud

Traust is curated by Stefan Schröder, artist, curator, co-director and co-founder of Tenthaus Oslo, a non-profit project space for contemporary art in the city of Oslo. The exhibition catalogue includes contributions by art writer, theorist, and professor Stephen Wright, and Ellen K. Aslaksen social anthropologist and Dean of the Art and Craft Department. Graphic Design by Ariane Spanier

For further information about the programme of events during the exhibition, please check the homepage for updates. 

About the MFA Programmes
The MFA in Art and Public Space is a two-year master programme with an interdisciplinary approach to art production and a highlighted focus on public space. At the core of the programme lies an understanding of contemporary art as a critical spatial practice, providing a platform for new social and political encounters. The programme integrates professional practices, progressive pedagogies, intercultural dialogues, collaborative social engagements, and transdisciplinary explorations within an immersive educational environment. Students are actively encouraged to develop their practice through various methods of research and analytical thinking, as well as practical engagement with sites and situations encountered in our society today.

The MFA in Medium and Material Based Art is a multi-disciplinary, two-year fulltime study. The focus is on the development of each student’s individual art practice. The study emphasises art making and an innovative, critical attitude to medium and material-based art. The programme stimulates and supports experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to the department’s unique combination of subject areas: Print and Drawing, Textile, Ceramics, Metal and Jewellery.

About the Oslo National Academy of the Arts
Oslo National Academy of the Arts is Norway’s largest college of higher education in the field of visual and performing art with over 550 students and currently offers 24 study programmes in six departments: Art and Craft, Design, The Academy of Fine Art, The Academy of Dance, The Academy of Opera, and The Academy of Theatre.­