Woojung Chun

Tilbake til fremtiden – ”Biblioteket” Luftskipets første prosjekt

When I was invited to curate the inaugural exhibition for Luftskipet, I felt it was important to propose a project with a universal theme that local people could relate to. Da jeg ble invitert til å kuratere utstillingen for innvielsen av Luftskipet, følte jeg det var viktig å foreslå et prosjekt med et universelt tema som lokalbefolkningen kunne forholde seg til. One of the primary roles of a curator is to act as an enabler, someone that matches an artist's work with a particular site or building. En av de viktigste rollene for en kurator er å fungere som en tilrettelegger, noen som matcher en kunstners arbeid med et bestemt område eller bygning. As an experimental structure that functions as a mobile gallery, Luftskipet offers an inspiring challenge. Som en eksperimentell struktur som fungerer som et mobilt galleri, tilbyr Luftskipet en inspirerende utfordring. Its very name is evocative since the particular characteristic of a real airship is its facility to be lighter than air - that's how it remains airborne. Navnet er veldig suggestivt siden det som er karakteristisk for et ekte luftskip er dets evne til å være lettere enn luft – det er slik det forblir luftbåren. This provides an apt metaphor for my mission to offer an art project that has an ethereal, imaginative aspect to it, which also has a resonance with both the past and future. Dette er en passende metafor for min oppgave å tilby et kunstprosjekt som har et eterisk, fantasifullt aspekt ved seg, som også har en resonans i både fortid og fremtid. As an image the airship has associations with the pioneering days of air transport and yet it also has an archaic science fiction quality about it, in the tradition of writers like Jules Verne or HG Wells. Som et bilde gir luftskipet assosiasjoner til banebrytende dager i lufttransporten, samtidig som det også har en arkaisk science fiction kvalitet over seg i tradisjonen av forfattere som Jules Verne og HG Wells. In this way Luftskipet acts a kind of 'time machine', linking its historic site of Gjerde farmhouse with the present day material culture of Fjell. Having spent many years juxtaposing contemporary art with historical sites and artifacts, I have a strong belief in the idea of non-linear time and a passion for placing art outside the confines of the conventional museum gallery in order to provide a new sense of temporality. På denne måten fungerer Luftskipet som en slags "tidsmaskin", som kobler det historiske området ved Gjerde våningshus med nåtidens kulturmateriale i Fjell.

Etter å ha tilbrakt mange år med å sidestille samtidskunst med historiske steder og gjenstander, har jeg en sterk tro på ideen om en ikke-lineær tid og en lidenskap for plassering av kunst utenfor rammen av det konvensjonelle museums galleriet for å gi en ny fornemmelse av temporalitet. I chose Biblioteket by Korean artist Woojung Chun's for Luftskipet because I was interested in an artwork that could allude to both the past and the future. Jeg valgte Biblioteket av den koreanske kunstneren Woojung Chun til Luftskipet fordi jeg var interessert i et kunstverk som kunne henspille på både fortid og framtid. Installed within Luftskipet it offers a transitional space that inspires the mind to wander back and forwards in time and thus invites creative reflection. Installert i Luftskipet tilbyr verket et rom med overganger som inspirerer tankene til å vandre frem og tilbake i tid, og på den måten invitere til kreativ refleksjon.

As a curator my concern needs to focus on how the combination of the artist's work and its site will engage public interest. I min rolle som kurator er jeg opptatt av å fokusere på hvordan kombinasjonen av kunstnerens arbeid og dets plassering vil engasjere offentlig interesse. The primary objective is to match the artwork with the physicality of the site in order to create a social environment in which this community can find meaning. Det primære målet er å matche kunstverket med det fysiske området for å skape et sosialt miljø der dette lokalsamfunnet kan finne mening. After considering a number of options with the project director Gitte Saetre, we decided the Gjerdet farmhouse at Fjell was the perfect location for Luftskipet with its Biblioteket installation. Etter å ha vurdert en rekke alternativer med prosjektets leder Gitte Sætre, kom vi frem til at Gjerdet kulturminnegard på Fjell var den perfekte beliggenheten for Luftskipet med installasjonen Biblioteket. Built in 1916, this typical regional farmhouse was formerly the home of a teacher called Christoffer Hansen Fjelde who was born in 1843 and lived until the age of 90. Bygget i 1914, dette typiske regionale våningshuset var tidligere hjemmet til en lærer som het Christoffer Hansen Fjelde som ble født i 1843 og levde til han var 90. Christoffer was highly regarded in Fjell as both a skilled teacher and salmon farmer and as a result held several important offices in the region. Christoffer var høyt ansett i Fjell både som en dyktig lærer og ved drift av oppdrettslaks, og som et resultat av dette holdt flere viktige kontorer i regionen. He was married to Oline Johnsdatter (b. 1871) from Tusøen in Herlø, and together they had the children Ragna Matilde (1872-1945), Kari (1875 -1942) and Petra Nilsina Augusta (1880-1951).  Petra later married Ole Vindenes Fjell, and they are also the parents of Olga Fjell who was the last resident of Gjerdet farmhouse. Han var gift med Oline Johnsdatter (f. 1871) fra Tusøen i Herlø, og sammen hadde de barna Ragna Matilde (1872-1945), Kari (1875 -1942) og Petra Nilsina Augusta (1880-1951). Petra giftet seg senere med Ole Vindenes Fjell, og de er også foreldre til Olga Fjell som var den siste som var bosatt på Gjerdet. She was also well respected and at one time became the Kommune's chief welfare officer. Hun var også godt respektert og på et tidspunkt ble hun trygde sjef i Fjell. Olga Fjell never married, so the story of her family ended when she eventually passed away in 2006. Olga Fjell giftet seg aldri,og sammen med søsteren drev hun gårdsbruket. Historien om familien tok slutt da Olga døde i 2006. A year later the Fjell Kommune acquired the farmhouse and its contents as a 'living museum' to illustrate the daily life of the region and a centre for local history and traditional handicraft workshops. Et år senere kjøpte Fjell Kommune våningshuset og dets innhold beholdt som et "levende museum" for å illustrere dagliglivet i regionen og som et senter for lokal historie og tradisjonelt håndverk verksted. Heldigvis, og sBy good fortune, like many elderly people, Olga kept a multitude of seemingly mundane objects and ephemeral documents that have subsequently been acknowledged as possessing local historical significance.om mange eldre mennesker, hadde Olga en rekke tilsynelatende kjedelige gjenstander og forgjengelige dokumenter som senere er blitt anerkjent for å ha lokalhistorisk betydning. Preserved as it was in her day, Olga's house is a 'time capsule' that contains a diverse collection of fascinating archival material. Bevart som det var i hennes dager, er Olgas hus en "tidskapsel" som inneholder en variert samling av fascinerende arkivmateriale. This included a memorial book, dated 1878, that belonged to her grandfather Christoffer and since he lived on the same farm for such a long period, this provides a unique and valuable insight into local Fjell life. Dette inkluderer en minnebok datert 1878, som tilhørte hennes bestefar Christoffer, og siden han bodde på samme gården i en lang periode gir dette en unik og verdifull innsikt i det lokale livet i Fjell.

The documents and artifacts from Gjerdet farmhouse are the kind of archives that appeal to our natural human curiosity and fascination for other people's life stories. De dokumenter og gjenstander som er på Gjerdet gård er en type arkiv som appellerer til vår naturlige menneskelige nysgjerrighet og fascinasjon for andre folks livshistorier. They also offer us the opportunity to research and make new discoveries and reappraisals of the past. Det tilbyr oss også muligheten til å forske og gjøre nye funn og revurderinger om fortiden. Archives activate the memory, although they suggest something that is past and closed, they represent a body of stored documentary material that is ongoing and continues to interact with a living, current reality. Arkiver aktiverer minnet, selv om de antyder noe som er forbi og lukket, representerer de en stor mengde lagret dokumentarisk materiale som pågår og fortsetter å samhandle med en levende, aktuell virkelighet. Unlike works of art such archives contain material that isn't dependent on aesthetic criteria or taste to be collected. I motsetning til kunstverk inneholder slike arkiver materiale som ikke er avhengig av estetiske kriterier eller smak for å bli samlet. These documents and artifacts that are oddly arresting in their ordinariness, all hold truths and perhaps their most appealing quality is the very randomness of their existence. Disse dokumenter og gjenstander som er merkelig arresterende i all sin alminnelighet er alle sanne, og kanskje deres mest tiltalende kvalitet er tilfeldigheten av deres eksistens. Besides providing an excellent research resource for local historians and genealogists, this collection refers to 'unofficial' personal histories that are more intimate and moving than 'important' museum artifacts. Foruten å være en fremragende forsknings ressurs for lokalhistorikere og slektsgranskere, refererer denne samlingen til "uoffisielle" personlige historier som er mer intime og rørende enn museets "viktige" gjenstander. These surviving Gjerdet documents and images, offer us the opportunity to analyze the narratives that are embedded within them. Disse overlevende dokumenter og bilder fra Gjerdet gir oss muligheten til å analysere fortellingene som ligger i dem. Seemingly ordinary objects, documents and ephemera often mark profound events of personal significance as well as local and even national importance. Tilsynelatende vanlige gjenstander, dokumenter og ephemera markerer ofte dyptgripende hendelser av personlig betydning, så vel som lokale og til og med av nasjonal betydning. Besides the material relating to farming, fishing, gardening, textiles, folklore poetry and songs, there is the unique story of the farm's role during WWII. I tillegg til materialet knyttet til jordbruk, fiske, hagearbeid, tekstiler, folklore dikt og sanger, er det den unike historien om gårdens rolle under den andre verdenskrig. At this time, the Germans occupied most of Fjell due to the building of the Festung gun emplacement on top of the Fjedlafjellet, the mountain above Fjell. På denne tiden okkuperte tyskerne det meste av Fjell på grunn av byggingen av Festningen med beliggenhet på toppen av Fjedlafjellet, like ovenfor Fjell. Some of the farms had to house German officers so the locals had a much closer encounter with the invading forces than most Norwegians. Noen av gårdene måtte huse tyske offiserer, og slik hadde lokalbefolkningen et mye nærmere møte med de invaderende styrkene enn de fleste nordmenn. The people building the installation on top of the mountain were mostly Russian POWs, and the people living on the farms in the area have a lot of fascinating stories concerning relationships between both Russians and the locals and German soldiers and the locals. Menneskene som bygget installasjonen på toppen av fjellet var mest russiske krigsfanger, og folk som bor på gårdene i området har mange fascinerende historier om forholdet mellom både russere og lokalbefolkningen og tyske soldater og lokalbefolkningen. At the Gjerde we find documentary evidence of both, but to this day it's only the relationship between the Russians and the locals that are 'official' so Olga's house retains many hidden histories. På Gjerde finner vi dokumentasjon om begge, men helt til denne dag er det bare forholdet mellom russerne og lokalbefolkningen som er "offisielle", så Olgas hus har holdt tilbake mange skjulte historier.

Gjerde farmhouse and its contents reveal aspects of Fjell's material culture that trigger memory associations, bringing to light the extraordinary within the apparent 'ordinariness' of the everyday. Gjerde våningshus og dets innhold avslører aspekter ved Fjell kulturminne som utløser assosiasjoner av minner, og setter lys på det ekstraordinære innenfor det tilsynelatende "ordinære" i hverdagen. The physical context of archives betrays little of their significance or potential resonances. Den fysiske rammen av arkiver røper lite om deres betydning eller potensielle resonanser. They leave traces to explore 'unofficial' histories, the forgotten personal memories of ordinary people. De etterlater spor til å utforske ”uoffisielle” historier, de glemte personlige minnene til ordinære mennesker. The archive is an after all an 'organic' entity; it expands notionally by continuous research and readings. Arkivet er tross alt en "organisk" enhet, det utvides imaginært ved kontinuerlig forskning og lesninger. It is not an end point but a starting point, a repository for the future that contains truths, secrets and forgotten histories waiting to be rediscovered. Det er ikke et sluttpunkt, men et utgangspunkt, et depot for fremtiden som inneholder sannheter, hemmeligheter og glemte historier som venter på å bli gjenoppdaget. The archive is the institutionalization of everyday collective memory - the notion of 'popular memory' as relating to unofficial histories of ordinary people  - a repository for private and even intimate personal details. Luftskipet aims to provide a vehicle to visualize a parallel between the 'imaginary' objects of Biblioteket and the authentic artefacts and archives of the Gjerdet farmhouse. Arkivet er institusjonaliseringen av vårt dagligdagse kollektive minne - begrepet 'på folkeminne’ om uoffisielle historier om vanlige mennesker - et oppbevaringssted for private og til og med intime personopplysninger. Luftskipets mål er å gi et redskap for å visualisere en parallell mellom de "imaginære" gjenstandene av Biblioteket og de autentiske gjenstander og arkiver fra Gjerdet våningshus. Chun's project celebrates the fundamental nature of the library as being a space that invites its visitors to explore and contemplate. Chun sitt prosjekt feirer bibliotekets grunnleggende natur som et rom som inviterer sine besøkende til utforskning og ettertanke. Libraries not only build relationships and connections but also act as catalysts or laboratories for creative thoughts. Bibliotekene bygger ikke bare relasjoner og forbindelser, men fungerer også som katalysatorer eller laboratorier for kreative tanker. They have been around since ancient times, the most famous one being at Alexandria, which is believed to date from the 3 ^rd century BC. De har eksistert siden oldtiden, den mest kjente er i Alexandria, som antas å datere fra 200-tallet f.Kr.. The general principal is that all knowledge is stored in libraries, which can be accessed via systems of search and retrieval. In this way the library is a potent metaphor for knowledge itself and it evokes images of organisation, study, research and discovery. Det generelt viktigste er at all kunnskap er lagret i biblioteker, som kan nås via systemer for søk og gjenfinning. På denne måten er biblioteket en potent metafor for kunnskap i seg selv, og det fremkaller bilder av organisering, studier, forskning og oppdagelser. Chun's Biblioteket is partly inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' famous story, 'The Library of Babel'. Chun's Biblioteket er delvis inspirert av Jorge Luis Borges berømte fortelling ”The Library of Babel". This proclaims the library as a universe, or vice-versa, with the grand idea that it is a repository for all knowledge and every individual truth. Den forkynner biblioteket som et univers, eller vise versa, med den store ideen om at det er et oppbevaringssted for all kunnskap og hver eneste individuelle sannhet. Her installation is an imagined library space with bookshelves, desks, cabinets, globes and other familiar devices – recognisable as symbols of secured and organised knowledge. Hennes installasjon er et tenkt bibliotek med bokhyller, pulter, skap, globuser og andre familiære innretninger - gjenkjennelig som symboler på sikret og organisert kunnskap. But instead of containing books, the shelves display intriguing symbols, curious objects, strange devices and even a recumbent figure. Men i stedet for å inneholde bøker, er hyllene utstilt med spennende symboler, underlige objekter, merkelige innretninger og til og med en hvilende figur. So within this place, where all knowledge seemingly resides, her project also focuses on the image of a library as a place of a persistent search for elusive, unanswered questions - unsolved theories, unexplained narratives, incomplete quests and unresolved philosophical debates. Så innenfor dette stedet, der all kunnskap tilsynelatende bor, fokuserer hennes prosjekt også på bildet av et bibliotek som et sted for et vedvarende søk etter unnvikende, ubesvarte spørsmål - uløste teorier, uforklarlige fortellinger, ufullstendige oppdrag og uløste filosofiske debatter.

The mysterious, diverse objects displayed on Chun's Biblioteket bookshelves are both meaningful and meaningless, alluding to the library's interwoven relations of fancy and authenticity. They represent a distillation of memories, accumulated information, ideas and interests – an ambiguous ever-growing and unbounded entity. Her 'library books' take the form of enigmatic artefacts that like those of Gjerdet farmhouse, seem to possess a persistent force of memory that refuses to be forgotten, carrying histories, fictions, emotions and knowledge suspended in time. De mystiske, varierte objektene som vises på Chun’s Bibliotekets bokhyller er både meningsfulle og meningsløse, og hentyder til bibliotekets sammenvevde relasjoner til fantasi og autentisitet. De representerer en destillasjon av minner, akkumulert informasjon, ideer og interesser – en tvetydig, stadig voksende og ubegrenset enhet. Hennes 'bibliotekbøker" tar form av gåtefulle gjenstander slik som de fra Gjerdet våningshus, som ser ut til å ha en vedvarende styrke i minner som nekter å bli glemt, som bærer av historier, fiksjoner, følelser og kunnskap suspendert i tid. The exhibition invites visitors an opportunity to reflect on their own lives and existence beyond the sensory experience they gain from the project. Utstillingen inviterer og gir besøkende anledning til å reflektere over sitt eget liv og eksistens utover den sensoriske opplevelsen de får fra prosjektet. As a curator I accept the realization that an exhibition project 'evolves' or has a life of its own. Som kurator godtar jeg at en utstillings prosjekt utvikler seg eller har et eget liv. Absorbed and hopefully appreciated by an audience, artworks incidentally acquire, regardless of the curator's input, a new dynamic that may vary from their original intentions and significance. Absorbert og forhåpentligvis verdsatt av et publikum, vil kunstverk tilfeldig erverve seg, uavhengig av en kurators innspill, en ny dynamikk som kan variere fra sine opprinnelige intensjoner og betydning. The context of Biblioteket refers to both the personal and the cultural,Bibliotekets kontekst henviser til både det personlige og det kulturelle, it aspires det aspirerer til to help us overcome our daily concerns and open up new perspectives on another future. å hjelpe oss å overvinne våre daglige bekymringer og åpne opp for nye perspektiver på en annen fremtid. In the environment of Fjell, Biblioteket has the potential to mingle the real and the imaginary, the historic and the poetic. I Fjell sine omgivelser har Biblioteket potensial til å blande det virkelige og det imaginære, det historiske og poetiske. The combination of Luftskipet with Biblioteket aims to appeal to our human faculties – senses, spirit and intellect with the optimistic belief that if people are fully engaged by art, they will also be engaged with their environment, and vice versa. Kombinasjonen av Luftskipet med Biblioteket tar sikte på å appellere til våre menneskelige fakulteter - sanser, ånd og intellekt med den optimistiske troen på at hvis folk er fullt engasjert av kunst, vil de også være opptatt av sine omgivelser, og vise versa.

James Putnam, London, May 2010 James Putnam, London, mai 2010

the exhibition.jpg

Back to the Future – Biblioteket the first Luftskipet project

When I was invited to curate the inaugural exhibition for Luftskipet, I felt it was important to propose a project with a universal theme that local people could relate to. One of the primary roles of a curator is to act as an enabler, someone that matches an artist’s work with a particular site or building. As an experimental structure that functions as a mobile gallery, Luftskipet offers an inspiring challenge. Its very name is evocative since the particular characteristic of a real airship is its facility to be lighter than air - that’s how it remains airborne. This provides an apt metaphor for my mission to offer an art project that has an ethereal, imaginative aspect to it, which also has a resonance with both the past and future. As an image the airship has associations with the pioneering days of air transport and yet it also has an archaic science fiction quality about it, in the tradition of writers like Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. In this way Luftskipet acts a kind of ‘time machine’, linking its historic site of Gjerde farmhouse with the present day material culture of Fjell. Having spent many years juxtaposing contemporary art with historical sites and artifacts, I have a strong belief in the idea of non-linear time and a passion for placing art outside the confines of the conventional museum gallery in order to provide a new sense of temporality. I chose Biblioteket by Korean artist Woojung Chun’s for Luftskipet because I was interested in an artwork that could allude to both the past and the future. Installed within Luftskipet it offers a transitional space that inspires the mind to wander back and forwards in time and thus invites creative reflection.

As a curator my concern needs to focus on how the combination of the artist’s work and its site will engage public interest. The primary objective is to match the artwork with the physicality of the site in order to create a social environment in which this community can find meaning. After considering a number of options with the project director Gitte Saetre, we decided the Gjerdet farmhouse at Fjell was the perfect location for Luftskipet with its Biblioteket installation. Built in 1914, this typical regional farmhouse was formerly the home of a teacher called Christoffer Hansen Fjelde who was born in 1843 and lived until the age of 90. Christoffer was highly regarded in Fjell as both a skilled teacher and salmon farmer and as a result held several important offices in the region. He was married to Oline Johnsdatter (b. 1871) from Tusøen in Herlø, and together they had the children Ragna Matilde (1872-1945), Kari (1875 -1942) and Petra Nilsina Augusta (1880-1951).  Petra later married Ole Vindenes Fjell, and they are also the parents of Olga Fjell who was the last resident of Gjerdet farmhouse. She was also well respected and at one time became the Kommune’s chief welfare officer. Olga Fjell never married, so the story of her family ended when she eventually passed away in 2006. A year later the Fjell Kommune acquired the farmhouse and its contents as a ‘living museum’ to illustrate the daily life of the region and a centre for local history and traditional handicraft workshops. By good fortune, like many elderly people, Olga kept a multitude of seemingly mundane objects and ephemeral documents that have subsequently been acknowledged as possessing local historical significance. Preserved as it was in her day, Olga’s house is a ‘time capsule’ that contains a diverse collection of fascinating archival material. This included a memorial book, dated 1878, that belonged to her grandfather Christoffer and since he lived on the same farm for such a long period, this provides a unique and valuable insight into local Fjell life.

The documents and artifacts from Gjerdet farmhouse are the kind of archives that appeal to our natural human curiosity and fascination for other people’s life stories. They also offer us the opportunity to research and make new discoveries and reappraisals of the past. Archives activate the memory, although they suggest something that is past and closed, they represent a body of stored documentary material that is ongoing and continues to interact with a living, current reality. Unlike works of art such archives contain material that isn’t dependent on aesthetic criteria or taste to be collected. These documents and artifacts that are oddly arresting in their ordinariness, all hold truths and perhaps their most appealing quality is the very randomness of their existence. Besides providing an excellent research resource for local historians and genealogists, this collection refers to ‘unofficial’ personal histories that are more intimate and moving than ‘important’ museum artifacts. These surviving Gjerdet documents and images, offer us the opportunity to analyze the narratives that are embedded within them. Seemingly ordinary objects, documents and ephemera often mark profound events of personal significance as well as local and even national importance. Besides the material relating to farming, fishing, gardening, textiles, folklore poetry and songs, there is the unique story of the farm’s role during WWII. At this time, the Germans occupied most of Fjell due to the building of the Festung gun emplacement on top of the Fjedlafjellet, the mountain above Fjell. Some of the farms had to house German officers so the locals had a much closer encounter with the invading forces than most Norwegians. The people building the installation on top of the mountain were mostly Russian POWs, and the people living on the farms in the area have a lot of fascinating stories concerning relationships between both Russians and the locals and German soldiers and the locals. At the Gjerde we find documentary evidence of both, but to this day it’s only the relationship between the Russians and the locals that are ‘official’ so Olga’s house retains many hidden histories.

Gjerde farmhouse and its contents reveal aspects of Fjell’s material culture that trigger memory associations, bringing to light the extraordinary within the apparent ‘ordinariness’ of the everyday. The physical context of archives betrays little of their significance or potential resonances. They leave traces to explore ‘unofficial’ histories, the forgotten personal memories of ordinary people. The archive is an after all an ‘organic’ entity; it expands notionally by continuous research and readings. It is not an end point but a starting point, a repository for the future that contains truths, secrets and forgotten histories waiting to be rediscovered. The archive is the institutionalization of everyday collective memory - the notion of ‘popular memory’ as relating to unofficial histories of ordinary people  - a repository for private and even intimate personal details. Luftskipet aims to provide a vehicle to visualize a parallel between the ‘imaginary’ objects of Biblioteket and the authentic artefacts and archives of the Gjerdet farmhouse. Chun’s project celebrates the fundamental nature of the library as being a space that invites its visitors to explore and contemplate. Libraries not only build relationships and connections but also act as catalysts or laboratories for creative thoughts. They have been around since ancient times, the most famous one being at Alexandria, which is believed to date from the 3^rd century BC. The general principal is that all knowledge is stored in libraries, which can be accessed via systems of search and retrieval. In this way the library is a potent metaphor for knowledge itself and it evokes images of organisation, study, research and discovery. Chun’s Biblioteket is partly inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ famous story, ‘The Library of Babel’. This proclaims the library as a universe, or vice-versa, with the grand idea that it is a repository for all knowledge and every individual truth. Her installation is an imagined library space with bookshelves, desks, cabinets, globes and other familiar devices  – recognisable as symbols of secured and organised knowledge. But instead of containing books, the shelves display intriguing symbols, curious objects, strange devices and even a recumbent figure. So within this place, where all knowledge seemingly resides, her project also focuses on the image of a library as a place of a persistent search for elusive, unanswered questions - unsolved theories, unexplained narratives, incomplete quests and unresolved philosophical debates.

The mysterious, diverse objects displayed on Chun’s Biblioteket bookshelves are both meaningful and meaningless, alluding to the library’s interwoven relations of fancy and authenticity. They represent a distillation of memories, accumulated information, ideas and interests – an ambiguous ever-growing and unbounded entity. Her ‘library books’ take the form of enigmatic artefacts that like those of Gjerdet farmhouse, seem to possess a persistent force of memory that refuses to be forgotten, carrying histories, fictions, emotions and knowledge suspended in time. The exhibition invites visitors an opportunity to reflect on their own lives and existence beyond the sensory experience they gain from the project.  As a curator I accept the realization that an exhibition project ‘evolves’ or has a life of its own. Absorbed and hopefully appreciated by an audience, artworks incidentally acquire, regardless of the curator’s input, a new dynamic that may vary from their original intentions and significance. The context of Biblioteket refers to both the personal and the cultural, it aspires to help us overcome our daily concerns and open up new perspectives on another future. In the environment of Fjell, Biblioteket has the potential to mingle the real and the imaginary, the historic and the poetic. The combination of Luftskipet with Biblioteket aims to appeal to our human faculties – senses, spirit and intellect with the optimistic belief that if people are fully engaged by art, they will also be engaged with their environment, and vice versa.

James Putnam, London, May 2010

front.liten.jpg