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July 12, 2023 – Review
Momentum 12, “Together as to gather”
Novuyo Moyo

The twelfth edition of Momentum, held on Jeløya island in the coastal town of Moss, is an experiment in non-hierarchical models for curating biennials, with Tenthaus at the helm. As part of its open, participatory process with an emphasis on local contexts, members of the collective invited an artist or collective each and worked in reverse from there to find points of intersection and connecting threads between the participants.
Most of the works are contained in Gallery F 15’s main space, a few spilling out onto the farm grounds outside. Inside, the educational platform and art collective Gudskul—formed of the three Jakarta-based collectives Grafis Huru Hara, ruangrupa, and Serrum—have expanded on the collaborative vision of the curators with Stitching Ecosystems: GUDHAUS (all works 2023). The “work” functions as a space where visitors are invited to engage in knowledge-sharing and communal processes. It’s also a semi-archive of the collective’s interventions and projects driven by these same notions. Outside, an extension of a project staged also in ruangrupa’s Documenta 15, Stitching Ecosystems: Gudkitchen-Tentskul, was only partially activated at the opening as the kitchen wasn’t yet functional. Placed for now under a banner by Nayara Leite that reads “I AM GLAD WE …
July 6, 2015 – Review
"Momentum 8: Tunnel Vision"
Barbara Sirieix

In Kafka’s “The Burrow” (1931), one of his last unfinished short stories, the reader is taken through a network of tunnels, built by the constructor-narrator, which constitutes his home, his fortress, and his life’s obsession. The channels ploughed by his fixated thoughts seem to merge with those of his subterranean burrows, exemplifying Kafka’s own process as a writer. The story illustrates a mind narrowing towards a single idea, a “tunnel vision” that is one of the lines of thought pursued by the curators of “Momentum 8.”
This year’s edition of the Nordic Biennial in Moss, Norway, is further inspired by such subjects as the personalizing effects of Google algorithms, drugs and capitalism, conspiracy theories, theosophy, Nordic seclusion, Virginia Woolf, and Edvard Munch’s retreat in Moss. Curators Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Birta Gudjonsdottir, Stefanie Hessler, and Toke Lykkeberg have convened a list of 25 artists, a smaller number of participants than in previous editions, allowing a greater focus on single works. Across the biennial’s two venues—Momentum kunsthall and Galleri F15—they strike a subtle, rhythmic arrangement of progress and regression, drops, losses, and accelerations, featuring immersive environments, rotating devices, and synesthetic experiences that mess with the visitor’s perceptions. Visions reappear as some works …