Silje Figenschou Thoresen – härifrån strök gränsen mot nordväst i en båge

In July we offer free introductions all open days at 1pm.

Silje Figenschou Thoresen’s artistic practice emanates from a Sami design tradition that is based on improvisation and problem-solving. In a nomadic culture, design solutions often become temporary, and objects can have many different areas of use. The same object can be used for different purposes at different times without being altered or processed because you don’t know what the material will be used for next time. The materials that are included in the exhibition is mostly reused, found remnants of earlier activities in other settings. Tracks after both people and places.

The artist bases most of her art on a logic that is built on these conditions and what is readily available, one’s own and other’s knowledge, the landscape and site. In one of the installations the whole gallery space is filled with temporarily put together and sketch-like structures. The objects that make up the structures keeps their original shape while the installation and its parts final form is decided by the space and the artists idea for the specific context.

The other installation which takes place in Marabouparken’s project room is based on the series Vandret linje. Drawings in thin lines that shows arkeological drawings from different scientific projects regarding historical Sami settlements in the artist home area is shown here. The artwork tells us about these places and their history, at the same time it mirrors the Swedish colonialism in Sami areas and geology’s attempt to seize the nomadic lifestyles’ remnants in traditional scientific structures. From this contradictory situation a distinct poetic narrative of the landscape arises. The exhibition title is a quote from a publication on geological research from 1929.