Oslo Pilot lays foundations for future art-in-public space biennial
In response to an initiative by the City of Oslo Agency for Cultural Affairs (Norway), curators Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk are laying the groundwork for a future art biennial in the form of Oslo Pilot, a two-year, experimental, research-based project to investigate the role of art in and for the public realm. This active working process will count on the collaboration of different professionals in the field of art and other disciplines to define the ideal format and characteristics of a periodic, art-in-public-space event in the city of Oslo.
The project is underpinned by a reflection on time. How to intervene in unprotected public spaces that are subject to constant change? How to operate in precarious spaces by embracing uncertainty rather than opposing it? How to make art within the shifting context of the city and the public domain that explores and challenges ideas of permanence and the ephemeral?
Oslo Pilot will focus on four lines of research: Reactivation, Disappearance, Periodicity and Public.
Working within these four axes implies a far-reaching reflection on the temporal relations between contemporary art and public space. This process must grapple with the modification of meanings and actions in the public sphere, the readjustment and re-appropriation of concepts, signs and representations in spaces subject to constant mutation. It must address the instability of the meaning(s) of a work of art when its context is one of constant change, when its evolution may well be headed towards partial or complete disappearance, or towards new and different readings. Oslo Pilot will encourage tangible examples of work that addresses the periodicity of art in public space, whereby the work itself engages with this condition.
How should we contemplate the mutations of a concept over different editions of a biennial, triennial or quinquennial? How to tackle the reactivation of meanings, signifiers and signs in public space? How to reach a definition of the loaded term public, given that public can refer to audiences, to a space of debate, to communities, to singular properties or the commons. Terminology and language themselves are subject to temporality.
Working closely with artists, art institutions and specialists from other disciplines, Oslo Pilot will comprise a project space which will house an archive and host a programme of talks, workshops and exhibitions. It will also produce symposiums, encounters and seminars in collaboration with other institutions. The project will also publish its own magazine and a new editorial line that focuses on the poetical text, as well as overseeing the production of artworks in public spaces and in the public domain.
Oslo Pilot is a project initiated and funded by The Agency for Cultural Affairs in the City of Oslo.
Curators: Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk
Contacts:
General enquiries: kontakt [at] oslopilot.no
Media enquiries:
Norway: Kjersti Tubaas, Agency for Cultural Affairs:
T +0047 924 42 884 / kjersti.tubaas [at] kul.oslo.kommune.no
International: Maria Marques, Brunswick Arts:
T +49 15209005122 / mmarques [at] brunswickgroup.com
