Tendencies 2026: Kneaded. Shaped. Fired.

Galleri F 15 presents Tendencies 2026: Kneaded. Shaped. Fired., the forty-seventh edition of one of the Nordic region's longest-running and most influential exhibitions dedicated to contemporary craft. Established in 1971, Tendencies has evolved from a national survey of Norwegian craft into a recurring platform for examining developments in contemporary material practices across the Nordic countries. 

Curated by Maria C. Havstam, this edition focuses on ceramics, not simply as a medium, but as a way of thinking. Bringing together works by Wisam Al-Samad (Norway), Anton Alvarez (Sweden), Ane Fabricius Christiansen (Denmark), Christina Schou Christensen (Denmark), Anders Hald (Denmark), Fanny Ollas (Sweden), Erik Pløen (Norway), Andrea Scholze (Norway), Astrid Sleire (Norway), and Nina Andrea Standerholen (Norway), the exhibition explores clay as an active participant in artistic production rather than a passive material awaiting form. 

Through sculpture, installation, vessel-based practices, and site-specific works, the participating artists investigate the dynamic relationship between intention and material behaviour, control and surrender, tradition and experimentation. The exhibition is structured around four interconnected concepts – head, heart, hand, and soul—which together describe the intellectual, emotional, physical, and intuitive dimensions of making. 

Drawing on theoretical perspectives that recognize agency beyond the human, Tendencies 2026: Kneaded. Shaped. Fired. considers how matter itself shapes artistic processes and outcomes. Clay emerges not only as a medium through which ideas are expressed, but as a collaborator capable of influencing form, meaning, and experience. 

The exhibition unfolds against the backdrop of a renewed international interest in ceramics. Across contemporary art, historical distinctions between craft and fine art have become increasingly porous, opening new possibilities for material-based practices and the artists reflect this expanded field in diverse ways. 

Anton Alvarez employs custom-built tools and systems to generate architectural forms that emerge through a dialogue between technology, gravity, and material behaviour. Christina Schou Christensen pushes clay and glaze to their physical limits through high-temperature firing and the reuse of industrial waste materials. Ane Fabricius Christiansen works with geological materials and transformative processes that highlight the elemental forces embedded within clay and minerals. Fanny Ollas combines ceramics with references drawn from textiles, fashion, and everyday objects, imbuing familiar forms with psychological and symbolic associations. Wisam Al-Samad uses calligraphy, colour, and sculptural installation to explore language, identity, and cultural memory. Andrea Scholze creates expressive ceramic figures that reflect on humanity's relationship with animals, nature, and the subconscious. Astrid Sleire's abstract sculptures balance construction and fragility, drawing on architectural and landscape forms in transition. Anders Hald investigates bodily expression and psychological states through raw, tactile sculptural forms, while Nina Andrea Standerholen creates vessels rooted in close observation of landscape, incorporating locally sourced materials to evoke memory, place, and belonging.

A special presentation is also dedicated to Erik Pløen (1925–2004), a pioneering figure in modern Norwegian ceramics and the initiator of the first Tendencies exhibition. Pløen's experimental approach to form, glazing, and firing provides a historical framework through which contemporary practices may be viewed, revealing continuities of curiosity, innovation, and material inquiry across generations. 

Developed as a collective research project involving artists, researchers, and a youth advisory group, Tendencies 2026: Kneaded. Shaped. Fired. continues Galleri F 15’s longstanding commitment to contemporary Nordic art while offering a timely reflection on the cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical possibilities of ceramics today. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published as part of its research and public programme, featuring newly commissioned texts by Maja Sofie Rasmussen, PhD fellow in ceramic art, and Mats Linder, researcher in craft and design. The publication serves both as an extension of the exhibition’s inquiry and as a lasting contribution to contemporary discussions around ceramics and material-based practice. 

Galleri F 15 wishes to extend warm thanks to the Pløen family and the National Museum in Oslo for the loan of works by Erik Pløen; to the Clay Museum, Denmark, and the Röhsska Museum, Sweden, for their valuable contributions to the research process; and to Norwegian Crafts for its generous support of the exhibition. 

Tendencies 2026: Kneaded. Shaped. Fired. is on view until October 11, 2026 at Galleri F 15 in Moss, Norway.