Akashic Field
May 8–August 22, 2021
KODE launches Akashic Field, a new exhibition by Norwegian artist Marit Følstad. Akashic Field is a major installation project based on the rock type Masi Quartzite from Kautokeino.
In the course of her artistic career Marit Følstad (b. 1969) has gradually shifted from performance and video to large sculptural and multimedia projects. She works intuitively and with site-specific projects with a main focus on process, time and transformation. In Akashic Field the metamorphic rock Masi Quartzite is the point of departure for open contemplation. In Følstad’s project, the climate crisis of our times is of an existential nature: it impels us to re-evaluate our relationship to the world we are a part of.
In the autumn of 2017 Følstad happened to be in Helsfyr, Oslo. Amidst traditional tombstones displayed in front of an establishment, she caught sight of a half-hidden greenish boulder. The rock’s glittering chromium mica minerals and fantastic emerald green pattern of folds aroused a strong sense of belonging in Følstad. Memories of horseback riding under the artic Northern Lights during her childhood led Føstad to retrace her tracks north to the Finnmarksvidda highlands, to a stone quarry near Kautokeino.
In her larger projects Følstad often involves additional specialists with cutting-edge expertise. The installation Akashic Field was developed in collaboration with the think tank ITCA, the Institute of Trans-Conceptual Art, which, aside from Følstad, includes the artists Gunnar Moen and Ole Jørgen Ness. ITCA stands for an open, transgressive and holistic attitude to artistic practice, where all existing mental and material aspects provide valid clues to the work’s interpretation.
Nature as a product
The excavation of Masi Quartzite is a commercial business that transports a unique geological material from one global location to process it in another. 90 to 95 per cent of the broken rock is discarded. The “tenderloin” section is shipped to Germany, Italy and India, where the desired surface character and effect is produced, before the product is distributed to a discerning market.
In the summer of 2019, Marit Følstad travelled together with Ole Jørgen Ness on a reconnoitring expedition to the quarry. In the course of four days they collected 1.6 tons of discarded rock, gravel and sand, which is now transformed into art.
Inspired by Land Art (Earth Art) and artists like Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt and Michael Heizer, Følstad takes up the thread of the type of 1960s and ’70s American art that was preoccupied with non-commercial, highly nature-based and holistic ideas.
A change of expectations
Følstad has previously produced unique bronze casts of volcanic rocks, corals, perishable fruit and vegetables, as well as various kinds of nuts. The numerous references to nature’s diversity, materiality and resources open the works to unlimited interpretations.
The fact that we humans relate to nature as though it were a soulless accumulation of “things” which our species is free to manipulate, dissect, and transform into wares, is based on a perfunctory world view that is deeply embedded in our psyche and culture, says the artist. An alternative approach is found in ecophilosophy, where nature is attributed an intrinsic value beyond the value it has for human beings. The idea that all things are connected in a type of consciousness obliges humans to relate to nature in a more humble and respectful way. This attitude is reflected in Følstad’s open artistic process, where it is just as important to understand what the material expects of us, as what we expect of the material.
About the artist
After earning her BA from Glasgow School of Art, Marit Følstad completed her MFA at the Chicago Art Institute in 2000. Følstad was a Fullbright scholar at ISCP in New York, 2002–2003. She is represented in numerous prominent national and international collections. She currently lives and works in Oslo.
