EXHIBITION
The 2023 exhibition at Barents Spektakel activates the Old Fire Station in Kirkenes as a temporary artistic venue. It connects in dialogue with the programme of events taking place through Inversia´s Nomadic Base in Terminal B, and to the many other festival events happening around the town. The contributions within the exhibition are gathered together in different rooms in the space, each in their own way exploring various kinds of relationships, and the actions that create, disrupt, maintain, or destroy these relations. In correspondence with the overall festival theme, what emerges through the works as they create new dialogues with each other, is the importance of the act of listening, in all its forms, and the power of listening as a tool for changing perspectives and for creating new understandings and actions. Read more in the exhibition catalogue.
Anastasia Savinova and John Andrew Wilhite-Hannisdal will present their collaborative work Dialects of the Deep, which has been developing since June 2021 through a series of online meetings and residency visits to Kirkenes and Sør-Varanger. Dialects of the Deep reflects on underwater voices, and opens up for dialogue between humans and underwater beings. The sound-sculpture installation evokes the life cycles of fish and investigates how they are symbolically and physically connected to human life. The voices of cod vibrate the wooden boat-bodies, exploring old relationships and creating new harmonies.
The evolutionary ecologist Rebekah Oomen will present a scientific exhibition connected to the current collaborative work and research being done collectively by the group Torsketromming. The research project has been an important context for the installation by artists Anastasia Savinova and John Andrew Wilhite-Hannisdal, and the work will be developed further through Rebekah´s lecture: Dialects of the Deep: What can listening to cod tell us about their communities and how we impact them? taking place on Saturday 25. February within the installation space.
Polina Medvedeva will present an adapted version of her recent interactive sound installation, A Knock From Below Heard At The Bottom, where, equipped with an electromagnetic microphone, the audience becomes a voyeur, a foreign agent, an onlooker and an accomplice scanning the space that feigns normalcy. The work is an assemblage of conversations which are intercepted, listened in on, recalled or recorded, in an attempt to search for sparks of civil disobedience amid the absurdity of censorship.
Dimitri Thomas-Komissarov’s ongoing project Factum investigates and reshapes material from the printing press of Kirkenes´s local newspaper, Sør-Varanger Avis. Through this dialogue, the artist has been working with the aluminium plates that are used to physically print the newspaper in combination with his own photography to investigate the issue between information vs. disinformation.
Pauliina Feodoroff will present the video installation part of her work Matriarchy, which was exhibited as part of "The Sámi Pavilion", at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. She will also lead the guided bus tour Steer the way, Njâuddamon Sunday 26. February as part of the "From the Baltic to the Barents Sea" project, co-curated by Pikene på Broen and the Helsinki based Baltic Circle.
Pia Lindman uses an artistic practice that adapts ancient healing techniques to engage with what the artist calls the “subsensorial” through encounters. During the exhibition, she presents And then there are silences that speak of something else, still there, a series of digital paintings based on her treatment of Sør Varanger residents. The work also involves a performance taking place on Sunday 26. February in a 70-seater sauna in the village of Bugøynes as part of the “From the Baltic to the Barents Sea” project co-curated by Pikene på Broen and the Helsinki based Baltic Circle.
Tine Surel Lange and Pavlo Grazhdanskij presented their collaborative sound art project, Two sides of the River at the finissage of Barents Spektakel 2022, which became a lasting metaphor for the present difficulties involving how to initiate cross-border dialogue following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Imagined by the artists as a call and response sound experience across the Pasvik river, the work could not take place as planned because authorities in Nikel silenced one side of the performance due to the risk of a "snow storm". One year on, the artists present a memory of the event, and will use the festival as a continuation point for their collaborative work together.
The Pigeon-Gram Collective will collaborate with Kirkenes’s newly established sauna association to present the sauna audiobook experience Sauna Stories in the backyard of the exhibition at the Old Fire Station, complete with sea view. Bookings can be made online (details to follow), and drop-in sessions are possible when there is space. A changing room is provided and towels can be rented from the exhibition space.
Art group Yav presents the exhibition Confession of the Streets - invisible to the ordinary eye, and turning the centre of Kirkenes into a performative street gallery. For years, the space for public dialogue has been shrinking in Russia. After the war, the conditions for expressing one's own opinion became more stringent. The protest became dangerous and, as a result, anonymous. Street-art became one of the most visible forms of making an anti-war statement. The works of artists have a very short life span, being destroyed by the Russian authorities as quickly as possible, sometimes only a few hours after being made. During Barents Spektakel 2023, you will be able to see the destroyed works of independent artists from all over Russia on the walls of Kirkenes. While the bridges between our countries are being burned, Art group Yav offers the chance to hear free voices and see the protest art of Russia with the help of Augmented Reality technology.
