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the contribution to the exhibition consisted of 4 works with paper, each 180 / 180 cm :

 

- PAPERWORK WITH FLYING GEESE 1/3 -FLYING GEESE PATTERN BLOCK AS USED IN THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD QUILTCODE 

 

- PAPERWORK WITH FLYING GEESE 2/3 – OLAV MARTIN BRÅTVEIT AND JON GJERDE ENTERING TERMICS, OBSERVING CUMULUS CLOUDS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 

 

- PAPERWORK WITH FLYING GEESE 3/3 -THE SITUATION IS INCREASINGLY DRAMATIC

 

- SITESPESIFIC PAPERWORK FOR AIDIACENZE

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Also present in the images is the soundwork by Jonas Gazell.

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The place hosting the gallery used to be a wallpaper factory. Wallpaper is sort of a parallell innovation to the historic artistic painting. Both have origin in medieval tapestries. The artistic painting became a faster and cheaper way of communicating the narratives embedded within the tapestries, while the industrially produced wallpapers followed up on the practical functions of the medieval tapestry, covering walls. Within the cultural history of wallpapers is also the strong presence of the Diorama, the walk-inalternative-realities,- often the product of early colonial inspirations. Offcourse problematic, but also freshly utopian tainted by the enthusiasm of the explorer. .. and perhaps most important about wallpapers, mostly dominated by repetitive patternblocks – While the artistic painting have been the object of scrutinizing and alert critical reflections, the wallpapers (with some exeptions like famous designs by William Morris and so on) have lived very quiet lifes and seldom been the topic of critical discourse. Designed to create a backdrop and not to take centre stage, the wallpapers, consisting of shapes to rest the eyes upon while thinking about something else, have up through the ages been a hotbed for dreams and imagination in peoples private lifes.

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As an introvert child growing up in Norway in the 1980-ties and 1990-ties, I spent a lot of time looking at the wallpaper in my room. A subtle pastel design, of some asian influence I believe, a pattern of fans, downward pointing triangular shapes. As well as becoming the physical canvas of my own aesthetic experiments up through the years, the shapes and palett within the wallpaper became the background in the landscapes of the dreamworlds of parallel realities, miracles and virtually unlimited potential, that often exist within childhood imagination.

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Theese days I spend a lot of time thinking about the future potential of renevable energy generated by kites in the air (as an artist working on the topic of airborne wind energy). Among the norwegian entreprenours in this field is pilot of acrobatic hangglider Jon Gjerde, whom I have been doing interdisciplinary collaborations with during the last years. The triangular shape of the hangglider, not unlike the triangular shapes in my childhood wallpaper have become a strong symbol within my private mythology, for the sometimes dangerous potential existing within human nature. Obviously, it feels nice to do a wallpaper with triangular hangglider-shapes in Italy, where Leonardo himself was trying to fly back in the days.