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2022 Project: KUNSTFELTET

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Artists picking potatoes in the art field.

KUNSTFELTET
October 4 - 7
Hov, Norway

With artist performers:
Oscar Debs (LEB)
Eduardo Scaramuzza (BRA)
Anaclara Talento (UY)
Dalia Huerta Cano (MEX)
Samrridhi Kukreja (IN)
Lexie Owen (CAN)


KUNSTFELTET is an artistic project developed by Gabrielle Paré.

Paré invites six non-EU citizen artists based in Norway to pick potatoes on a potato farm. The potato picking is carried out during week 40, which is the period for the Norwegian tradition of Høstferie (the Autumn Holiday), or "potato holiday" as it was first called. The potato holiday has its roots in the Second World War, when Norway found itself in a situation of great food shortages and distress. Increased cultivation of potatoes, the combination of resources, collaboration and the mobilization of labour by having potato holiday were all measures against a difficult national situation. During the week of potato holiday, schoolchildren were given a break from their studies so that they could help their families and communities with the potato harvest.

Potato picking is also a motif that has been used many times by Norwegian artists such as Johs Rian (Potetplukkere på Tåsen, 1939), Fredrik Collett (To kvinner tar opp poteter, 1881) and Christian Skredsvig (Potetopptagning, 1894), making this image an important inheritance in both Norwegian history and art history.

This project also has its roots in the economic precarity of artists, made all the more visible by the covid-19 pandemic. Among many vulnerable groups were non-EU artists based in Norway who don't have permission to work and earn their livings outside their trained fields—the art field. With cultural sectors being among the first to lock down, many of these artists struggled to earn enough money to survive, let alone fulfill the income requirements of their work permits to continue staying in the country.

In KUNSTFELTET this group of artists perform the role of the "potato picker" in an artistic performance, redefining farm labour as artistic labour. In doing so I re-imagine the image of Norwegian cultural heritage while also extending the art field to a potato field in Hov.

The project is connected to the motivations behind the potato holiday: distress, precarity, collaboration and the need for creative solutions. With support from Kulturrådet, I pay all artists an artist fee for their performance.


Acknowledgements:
KUNSTFELTET wouldn't be what it is without these supporters, collaborators, tip givers and important conversation partners. These individuals have helped me think through concepts of precarity, labour, immigration, Norwegian legacies and heritage, farming and potatoes.

Thank you to:

Oscar Debs, Eduardo Scaramuzza, Anaclara Talento, Lexie Owen, Dalia Huerta Cano, Samrridhi Kukreja, Øyvind Knudsen, Jørn Haglo, Ingrid Halvorsen, Hanna Roloff, Liilian Saksi, Ole Gustav Klevberg, Aksel Ree, A K Dolven, Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez, Prerna Bishnoi, Anthony Morton, Ina Hagen, Verdensrommet, Victoria Durnak, Helle Johansen, Tor Jacob Solberg, Søssa Jørgensen, Randi Thommessen and Anne Szefer Karlsen. A special thank you to Jan Christensen who graciously agreed to be a consultant in this project, and to Siv Kjelstrup and Sverre Trætteberg for being our wonderful hosts in Hov. Thank you to Pål Bjarne Johansen for planting the seed of this project.

This project was made possible thanks to generous support from Kulturrådet.

2022 Exhibition: eating the other, Cambridge Art Galleries, Canada

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Molly JF Caldwell, Veil series, 2020 – 2022, restrung pearl necklace and organic food materials.

eating the other

Featuring: Molly JF Caldwell, Rajyashri Goody, Gabrielle Paré, Alize Zorlutuna
Guest curated by Noor Bhangu

September 17 – November 30, 2022
Cambridge Art Galleries, Preston

Opening Reception and Artist Performance: Thursday September 29, 2022 at 5:00 PM, Cambridge Art Galleries, Preston.

eating the other is a group exhibition that elaborates on the relationships between food, race, and belonging through distinct artworks and public programming. The exhibition features four artists, offering various entry and exit points into timely conversations around food as a medium for eating together and cooking back.

Artists Molly JF Caldwell, Rajyashri Goody, Gabrielle Paré, and Alize Zorlutuna will share projects emerging out of diverse cultural sites of food production and consumption. Collages, installations, literatures, workshops, and foodstuff will be exhibited together to gesture to the critical potential of food in contemporary art.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a performance developed by Alize Zorlutuna, which extends the themes of the exhibition and questions forms of transactional knowledge within the artworld and the ways in which we give and receive knowledge about ourselves.

Cambridge Art Galleries, Idea Exchange
Preston
435 King Street East
Cambridge ON
N1S 2H4
519.653.3632
ideaexchange.org/cambridge-art-galleries
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Hours of Operation
Monday – Thursday 10:00 AM to 8:30 PM
Friday 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Saturday 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
Sunday 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Admission is free and all are welcome.

Cambridge Art Galleries, Idea Exchange presents contemporary art from two galleries in the City of Cambridge: Queen’s Square and Preston. We serve our regional and broader communities through the delivery of contemporary art programs that foster critical cultural dialogue. Our artistic activities engage, embrace, and empower people of all ages and abilities from diverse backgrounds.

Cambridge Art Galleries is situated on the traditional land of Indigenous peoples dating back countless generations. We recognize that it is part of the Haldimand Tract, the traditional land of the Six Nations of the Grand River and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

2022 Exhibition and project: Bygd til by, Norway

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Bygd til by
Stykkjevika, Fyresdal
August 1 — 7, 2022

Bygd til by er en utstillingsplattform for unge kunstnere startet av Aksel Ree og Erle Saxegaard. Plattformen har en nomadisk utforming og reiser mellom bygden Fyresdal og byen Oslo. Fra 1.-7. august var ni kunstnere på stranden i Stykjevika i Fyresdal hvor de lagde en utstilling som forholdt seg til premissene landskapet og bygda gav. Utstillingen var åpen for publikum den 6. og 7. august før den reiser videre til Fortidsminneforeningen i Oslo på Vøienvolden gård der det vil være utstillingsåpning 16. september. 

Kunstnerne som deltar er :
Love Terins
Isak Wisløff
Sofie Brønner
Øyvind Bast Lie
Gabrielle Paré
Emanuel Totland Frogner
Ingrid K Bjørnaali
Aksel Ree
Erle Saxegaard

2022: Appointment to Fotogalleriet Board, Oslo

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Photo credit: Jannik Abel

I 2022 implementerer Fotogalleriet nye vedtekter for å fordele makt i ledende posisjoner og for å styrke galleriets ansvar basert på innbyggernes mangfold. Fotogalleriets formålsparagraf, skrevet i 1979, ble endret i fjor for å sikre en fremtid med tydelig fokus på samfunnsansvar. Styret er derfor fra 2022 utvidet med to medlemmer og to varamedlemmer – både for å sikre at styret speiler samfunnet, men også for å styrke Fotogalleriets strategiske arbeid i tiden fremover!

Ved Forbundet Frie Fotografers generalforsamling i 2022 ble Anne Szefer Karlsen valgt som ny styreleder. Som et resultat av vedtektsendringene er Chiara Ayad og Nastaran Kowkabi valgt inn som styremedlemmer. Thora Dolven Balke fortsetter i sitt verv som styremedlem, mens tidligere varamedlem Andreas Bennin rykker opp som fullverdig styremedlem. Gabrielle Paré og Leslia Vasylchenko inntrer som varamedlemmer.

Anne Szefer Karlsen, ny styreleder i Fotogalleriet, sier:

"Det er en stor ære å rykke opp fra styremedlem til styreleder i Fotogalleriets styre. Etter en grundig prosess over flere år, der vi har rådført oss med organisasjoner som Masahat, og gode samarbeidspartnere som TrAP, er vi endelig kommet til en korsvei der Fotogalleriet tar skrittet inn i en fremtid som speiler samfunnet og som både strukturelt og institusjonelt støtter visjonen til vår kunstneriske leder Antonio Cataldo. Jeg vil takke avtroppende styreleder Morten Andenæs for særs godt samarbeid, og ser frem til å fortsette samarbeidet med Fotogalleriets fantastiske stab og til å bli kjent med det nye styret."

Artist Talk: Dec 15, 6pm at Latitude 53

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Join us Wednesday, December 15 at 6 PM for an introductory Artist talk with Gabrielle Paré our Artist-in-Residence. Gabrielle will be with us until January 29, 2022.

This talk is also an invitation to collaborate. Gabrielle will share recent projects, including the socially engaged process of the language experiment “Samgrunnelse” (run jointly with urbanist Tina Lam and ROM for kunst og arkitektur in Oslo). This project explores the power of words; particularly, the power to include and exclude, and the power to shape the worldview of its speaker.

Building on the outcomes of “Samgrunnelse,” she will run a series of word workshops in January with local artists who share an interest in language. Artists will receive a fee for their participation.

Stay updated on our website and social media about the possibility of an online stream of the event for those who can't come in person. We hope to see you there!

Artist in Residence at Latitude 53: December 6 - January 29, 2022

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Gabrielle Paré is Latitude 53’s artist-in-residence from December 6 - January 29, 2022.

Latitude 53
10242 – 106 Street
amiskwacîwâskahikan
Edmonton, AB, Canada
T5J 1H7

Paré is interested in the interpretation of words and images and the many ways we as humans misunderstand one another. Because we communicate with many languages —textual, visual, physical— her practice is also text-, material- and performance-based.

During her time as an artist-in-residence at Latitude 53, she will continue her practice of exploring the language of identity. This approach includes a deconstruction of colonial language or distortion of recognizable codes to shift their meanings. In a central work to her current practice, “Void if Altered” (2020), she depicts and distorts records of an official identity: a passport photo and a birth certificate. In this series of lightbox photographs, spaces are forced into the flat surface of the papers, creating bendable proof of a person. A piece of paper and a thin layer of ink is what authenticates our sex on a birth record and our biometric portraits. Yet, this is easily invalidated of intended meaning at the presence of a scratch, a misprint, or a stain. She sees the material possibilities of this “invalidation” as a liberation: an opportunity to transcend binary categories and to reveal something truer about ourselves than just our identities. In material terms, she blurs and bends and smudges at the edges of things to remember that understanding is movable.

Oct 28, 2021: Presenting Verdensrommet at UKS's Centenary seminar "Artists Organizing Artists" at Deichman Bjørvika, Oslo

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Oct 28, 2021
Deichman Bjørvika
12-5pm
Oslo, Norway


I'm presenting the mission and ambitions of Verdensrommet at Unge Kunstneres Samfund's seminar "ARTISTS ORGANIZING ARTISTS" on the occasion of UKS's 100th anniversary.

I'm sharing the stage in a panel discussion with fellow artist organizers and advocates Steffen Håndlykken (Chair of the UKS Board of Directors), Simona Barbera (Art Workers Italia), and Maj Horn (Unge Kunstnere og Kunstformidlere).

Verdensrommet is a mutual-support network of currently 200+ non-EU/EEA artists and cultural workers based in Norway. The network is a space for solidarity and exchange for immigrant artists in precarious situations shaped by meeting two often conflicting conditions: the nature of artist labour and Norwegian immigration regulations (utlendingsforskriften).

Sep 20, 2021 PODCAST: Conversations with Aliens of Extraordinary Ability

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This conversation includes the voices of artists and members of the Verdensrommet working group Gabrielle Paré, Rodrigo Ghattas, Prerna Bishnoi, and Anthony Morton. They discuss the origins of the network on the occasion of its first anniversary and shed some light on the work being realized in favor of non-EU artists working and living in Norway.

Listen to the podcast Conversations with Aliens of Extraordinary Ability here.

Credits:
Intro, outro and transition sounds by Emilie Wright
Logo design: Martin Schor
Producers: Gabrielle Paré, Rodrigo Ghattas, Prerna Bishnoi, and Anthony Morton
Postproduction: Prerna Bishnoi
Support by Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Unge Kunstneres Samfund, and Norske Billedkunstnere

Feb 27, 2021: BOOK LAUNCH at Printed Matter Book Virtual Art Book Fair and performance by A,D,E,G,M,P,V

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A,D,E,G,M,P,V
looking back at you to see if you are looking back at me
video
28 mins 12 secs
2021

The book Don’t rest, narrate is being launched at Printed Matter’s Virtual Art Book Fair.

Join us as our collective (A,D,E,G,M,P,V) is in conversation about our contributions to the book and the project as a whole. We will also be performing a text at the book launch. Register to join the book launch event.

For the occasion, A,D,E,G,M,P,V has also created the video work above looking back at you to see if you are looking back at me.

Sep 16, 2017: Uncertain States of Scandinavia - Out today!

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insta-uncertain.jpg

Issue 6 of Uncertain States of Scandinavia is out today. It was a very happy surprise to see my work on the cover. Additional work and a text from me inside. Pick up a copy at the following locations:

• Babel, Trondheim
• Fotogalleriet, Oslo
• Preus museum, Horten
• Aros Aarhus museum of modern art, Aarhus
• Fotografisk Center, København
• Hasselblad Center, Göteborg
• Fotogalleriet Format, Malmö
• Kristiansand Kunsthall
• Stavanger Kunsthall