Runa Carlsen

Staged photography

Tableau Paper release and one night exhibiotion

ILA GYM in Oslo

2016

An autobiograpical event from 1983 is the starting point for this work. Video footage from Comme des Garcons runaway show in Paris October 1983 is displayed side by the staged photograph from 2016 on print in Tableau paper Magazine. Designer of Comme des Garcons, Rei Kawakubo revolutionized European fashion world in the early 80-ties when she introduced her new collection in Paris and is the backdrop for new work in progress.   

NORWEGIAN SCULPTUR BIENNAL
 Vigelandsmuseeum 2015

The body’s fragility and our own modern age are here woven together in a variety of narratives. This is a continuation of a previous work entitled The Red Warp from 2014, which was based on the archaeological discovery of an early Iron Age warp in a marsh at Tegle Farm in Jæren in Southwest Norway. Carlsen used this once again as her starting
point, but this time clearly weaving the Old Norse Njál’s Saga into the piece by referring to a piece of weaving of the Valkyries, the shield-maidens of Odin, described therein. The saga mentions a loom made from entrails stretched across bloody spears, where a blood-red warp is weighed down by skulls, the reed is of iron, and arrows serve as shuttles. When the Valkyries weave, they also choose who is to die on the battlefield and who is to survive. Carlsen’s loom has been made from ordinary water-pipes of copper, and nylon threads are a product of the petroleum industy.

Collages

Based on press photograph cut-outs from newpapers

2011 untill 2015

 A selection was printed in the newspaper NY TID during spring 2015.

Medias one-dimensional representation off political power structures and social changes are always the same old story, I wanted this work to shift focus into other possible narratives and future scenarious,

The film takes as a starting point an autobiographical incident, Carlsen’s encounter with a group of Palestinian children and youngsters visiting Norway in August 1978 by initiative of The Palestinian Committee of Norway in collaboration with youth organization Ashbal and PLO. Being a child herself, she met the visitors as a member of the Red Pioneer, a youth organization linked to the radical Communist movement in Norway of the 7o-ties that co-hosted the young Palestinian guests. The failed attempt to establish a pen-friendship with one of the refugee children upon their departure-based on the non-existence of post address in refugee camps-left a deep impact on the young Carlsen and triggered her search for them in 2012, 34 years after the visit. In the film Carlsen combines publicly available, private end autobiographical material to unravel narratives that not only represent the collective, but most importantly the individual memories of a people living in a conflict-driven area. Her work therefor becomes a general search for the personal stories of the people Carlsen encountered during her journey to Beirut.

VESTLANDSUTSTILLINGEN 2015
Stavanger Kunsthall

The titel translate to The Red Warp and isa reconstruction of an archeological artifact from the Iron Age. The original warp was found in a bog on Tegle farm on Jæren on the west coast off Norway. The founding was historic, unique and well preserved and revealed weaving techniques and materials used in that period. The material in the reconstruction is Nylon yearn, from the petrol industry that has its epicenter in the region. DET RØDE VARPET is one in a body of work exploring the ancient textile history that carries traces off complex narratives about culture, aesthetic, economy, colonization and globalization.

SOLOSHOW 2010

Gallery SOFT OSLO

The project was kicked of by my daily obeservation of the transformation of the city area around my studio. The construction company Betonmast was buliding Bjørvika bridge and had set up a temporary scaffolding and I got permission to use it. The exhibition consited of the textile intervention THE NEW HOT SPOT  and the textile intstallation GRUNDRISSE. The materials origin from the petroleums industry.  

Temporary live installation

Youngstorget Sqare in Oslo

3. May 2007

Collaboration with Karen Kviltu Lidal

Textile intervention and archive video installation at Kunstnernes hus
In this work the Quilt is the framework to examine economic, cultural and social structures in society. With a closer look at this specific textile technique one discover that it carries history of economy, migration, slavetrade, colonization, community and folk art & esthetics. Often they where made in temporary collaboration and the tittle refers to this : a quiltingbee. During the exhibition period 6 Polish guest workers were hired to hand stich the lyrics from the song Internationale to the textile.

Screened on a monitor beside the quilting frame, extracts from the documentary from 1968, La Reprise du Travail aux Usines Wonders by Jacques Willemont. Students from the French National Film School made the documentary after they abandoned the university and entered the streets in solidarity with the general strikers. The footage shows a discussion in the street outside the factory entrance, between the woman protagonist, indignant about the cancelation of the strike. After 3 weeks on strike not accomplishing any off their demands she refuses to go back inside to do the dirty work.

Live performance at Kunstnernes hus 2010

A Yoga flow sessionwas announced by spred the word and included about 50 individuals during a one night live performance. Tutored byyoga teacher Heather Love.

Site-specific sound, photo and text installation

Den Frie Center of Contemporary Art

Oslos Square in Copenhagen

2012

This work deals with Norway and Denmark’s common history. In 1905 Norway became a sovereign state after 400 years under Swedish and Danish colonial governance. Recordede sound fragments from everyday life in Oslo during played realtime in a pedestrian tunnel, connecting the Train station, Østerport, with the art institution.

Temporary workshop

Lillestrøm Torv shoping center

2008

Drop in workshop on reuse off clothes and textile crafting techniqueswas offered the public and held in the local Shoping center in Lillestrøm. The objects made by the artist during the workshop was exhibited at Akershus Artcenter.

Made in collaboration with Karen Kviltu Lidal. The project was contextualized and distributed in a publication with texts writen by Ingrid Lønningdal, Elisabeth Storhaug, Line Ulekleiv and Runa Carlsen.   

read more about the project: http://www.akershuskunstsenter.no/2010/06/29/2000-lillestrom/

Mappa mi translate to My file and is a work that deals with the legacy off the radical leftist movement from the 70-ties. The text, photo and video installation was exhibited at Oslo Kunstforening in 2008.

The video is about 24 hours mayday in Oslo in 1979, and are based on memories of witnessing, as a youngster, a bomb attach on a Mayday parade. This violent attach that injured a man for life was carried out by a young man from a Neo Nazi group. The lawsuit that followed was the first politically motivated violence case in Norway in peacetime after the Second World War. The work investigates with how time and trauma influence the great narratives in our collective memory.

The reading group2011-2012
Together with Unni Gjertsen I initiated a reading-group at the artist run space Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo. Central to our program was a text by Bruno Latour
“An Attempt at a Compositionist Manifesto” that we cross read with text by philosophers Deleuze and Spinoza, and David Bohms On Dialogue. To Accompany program, we hosted guest lectures inspired by the interdisciplinary
and dialogic approaches to contemporary problems, addressing our thinking, bodies, as well as environmental challenges.

Resach based project made in collaboration with Tone Hansen.

Timeline is a visual representation of the history of artists and cultural workers engagement with Bjørvika and its surroundings from 1993 to 2011. Timeline is part of the ongoing work of COMMON LANDS comissioned by Rakett, Åse Løwgren and Caroline Tampere curators behinde the project.