Participating Artists
Her og der mentorprogram 2020 - 2021
alicja rosé
poet, illustrator and translator. Recently, her volume of poems with illustrations “Północ. Przypowieści” ("North. Parables") (Znak, 2019) has been published and had its premier at the Miłosz Festival 2019. In it, she has tried to understand what it means to be European today with Europe on the axis South-North, thus she spent five years traveling around Scandinavian and Baltic countries. The book by J. Iwaszkiewicz “Kocia książka” ("Cat's Book") with her illustrations was nominated for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year 2015. For illustrations to the book by Magdalena Tulli “Ten i tamten las” ("This and That Forest") (2017) she received the Literary Award of Warsaw. She translates poems and essays from Norwegian, English, Spanish, Italian, French, and from Polish to English. Her poems, essays appeared in “Ny Tid”, "Kultura Liberalna", "Zeszyty Literackie", "Gazeta Wyborcza", "Tygodnik Powszechny", "Przekrój", "Lighthouse Journal", "Carteggi Letterari", "Twórczość", among others.
At the moment she is working on a book of poems and a book of essays which talks about current political and human crisis issues through the lens of nature and art.
Yohannes Mulat Mekonnen (1992)
is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in video, Installations, drawings and mixed media. Growing up in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia that is a boiling pot of different ethnicities, religions and languages, he has always been fascinated by the intersections and tensions that arise from such coexistence of plurals. His recent works that deal with the question of representations of reality and the role of power in the creation of truth/narrative have their roots in his upbringing in a city that brims with an array of ethnic and religious cultures and hosts multiple competing narratives of plural origins. After completing his undergraduate studies in ASFAD and one year of wide-ranging artistic practice he moved to Tromsø, Norway where he studied masters of contemporary arts. His latest works are predominantly informed by his study of the relationship of reality and its myriad representations and how these representations dictate individual and cultural relations.
Martyna Kosecka
Composer and conductor, Poland
Martyna Kosecka is a Polish composer, conductor, performer, and researcher in new music, based in Norway since 2019. She studied composition and orchestral conducting in the Music Academies in Kraków and Katowice, in Poland. Through her strong connection with Iran's culture and art, she is dedicated to promoting contemporary Iranian music through the activities of co-founded Spectro Centre for New Music and artistic co-direction of Tehran Contemporary Music Festival.
Through her music, she experiments with alternative tunings, microtonality, and electroacoustic processing of sounds. Kosecka, with engagement and curiosity, plays with the perception of time and focuses on extracting timbral qualities of each individual sound through a microperspective approach.
Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor
is an artist, filmmaker, writer and community organizer. Her roots are in the Southern United States, born in Mississippi and bred in Florida on former Timucan land. Taylor's work manifests through performance, text, dialogue, dance and community building for Black People and People of Color. Her work centers on themes of ritual, visibility and identity mythology. She is chiefly concerned with ways to dismantle oppressive institutions and the creation of racial equity in art and theater. Taylor has performed and presented work at Chisenhale Gallery, Hebbel am Ufer, Astrup Fearnley Museet and written text for Vogue Germany and Haus der Kunst to name a few. She is newly based in Oslo and has most recently published text at Black Box teater, lectured at Nasjonalmuseet and taught at Norwegian Theatre Academy.
Abhijit A. A. a.k.a. Eternal Happiness™
is a freelance documentary photographer (from Mumbai, India) who documents human interest stories. He is currently based in Oslo, Norway. He has an extensive experience of photo-documenting the works and projects of different aid, humanitarian organisations and NGOs (including the Red Cross in conflict areas) on the field, in difficult and conflict-ridden areas.
Currently, he is in the final stages of publishing an exhaustive photo book on the Toto tribe of India. Totos are a less known and an indigenous, endangered tribe who reside only in Totopara village and who are only 1600 in population. This photo documentation encompasses the life cycle, traditions and the culture of the Totos and most importantly the changes in the lives of the Totos due to globalisation and modernisation.
REBEL ARCHITECTURE LAB - alla onopchenko
is an artistic collective provoking action and thought at the intersection of architecture, arts, urban interventions, and social sciences. It is established by Alla Onopchenko & Ioulia Eleftheriadou and is based in Oslo.
After shared educational experience in Sweden and working in different cultural contexts such as Ukraine, Greece, and Norway, this partnership emerged from a common interest in addressing design as an answer for societal challenges. Important aspects of their work are engaging with context and creating bonds with communities in order to produce site and situation-specific proposals, full-scale installations in the physical environment. They work through artistic experimental research, public events, and tactical interventions. They support green economies with timber construction and use recycled, reused, and low emission materials.
REBEL ARCHITECTURE LAB - Ioulia Eleftheriadou
is an artistic collective provoking action and thought at the intersection of architecture, arts, urban interventions, and social sciences. It is established by Alla Onopchenko & Ioulia Eleftheriadou and is based in Oslo.
After shared educational experience in Sweden and working in different cultural contexts such as Ukraine, Greece, and Norway, this partnership emerged from a common interest in addressing design as an answer for societal challenges. Important aspects of their work are engaging with context and creating bonds with communities in order to produce site and situation-specific proposals, full-scale installations in the physical environment. They work through artistic experimental research, public events, and tactical interventions. They support green economies with timber construction and use recycled, reused, and low emission materials.
Daria Kozlova
Illustrator, Russia
Daria is a freelance illustrator and art teacher based in Oslo, Norway. She studied art education at Leningrad State University named after A.S.Pushkin. Daria works with commercial illustration, storyboards and graphic design. Daria's images are quirky, fun and wonderfully detailed. Her series of illustrations of Oslo landmarks shows her deep love for the city. She creates perfect scenes that resonate with locals and evokes pride and nostalgia.
Beth Madeley (b.1997)
is a Japanese-English animator and draw-er. Her speciality is the dying (or reviving) art of hand-drawn analogue pencil-on-paper animation. She is especially interested in making work about minority identities and how they are treated in relation to different social constructs and topics that are still aren't commonly discussed. For example, subjects Beth has previously explored include:
the liminal feelings of being both white and Japanese
the history of virginity as a concept
the development (or lack thereof) of contraceptive options for people with penises, presented in a pamphlet aimed at young teenagers
the cathartic potential of free-writing and frame-by-frame animation in relation to trauma and mental health issues
In 2020 Beth was granted the Silver Award in Best Online Video: Short for her collaborative animation 'Visiting Day' in the Canadian Digital Publishing Awards. She dreams of winning BAFTAs and becoming a therapist.
Visobel (Vanessa) Black
is an Australian/British musician and multidisciplinary artist based in Oslo since 2017. She is classically trained in violin and voice with Bachelor in Composition (Sydney Conservatorium of Music in, 2004), and a Masters in Music (WSU, 2006).
Visobel has developed a distinct sound playing with dissonance and dark, rich textures and tonalities. Folklore played a large part in the music and stories of her upbringing forging a strong connection to the telling and preservation of stories through metaphor with a belief in their power to affect change in the modern world.
As a performer, she employs varied combinations of sound, composition, text, drawing, painting, textiles, interactive installation and most recently, experiments in video projection. Her work is most often a reflection of her own experiences and observations addressing the recurring themes of grief, trauma and healing with particular emphasis on women, intuition and the importance of having a voice of one’s own that is not only heard but visible.
Currently, she’s exploring how sound and spaces can transform and heal us, and if the gesture can be reciprocated. https://www.visobelblack.com
Her og der mentorprogram 2019
emily robbins
Writer, U.S.
Emily Robbins is the author of the novel A Word for Love, which was inspired by her time as a Fulbright Fellow in Syria, where she studied with a women's mosque movement and lived with the family of a leading intellectual. Originally from the US, Emily has an MFA in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and she is now based in Norway, where she is at work on a second novel. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, GQ and on the Modern Love Podcast. In 2016, she was awarded a second Fulbright Fellowship in creative writing.
amr tawfeek
Filmmaker, Egypt.
Amr Tawfeek is an Egyptian artist and filmmaker who based in Oslo after moving from his town Cairo. He studied in the Egyptian Academy of Art, Higher Institute of Cinema specialized in Directing/Cinematography/Script writing. He graduated in 2016, and since 2012 he joined the cinema working field in Egypt. Tawfeek knows how to deal with cinematography and to work with film production equipment.
Now he's writing his first short film, an Absurdist, surreal drama in Oslo and working with actors and film crew for his upcoming short film.
MIKE BEN HADJ
Artist, Belgium.
Mike Ben Hadj is a Belgian visual artist working with mural painting and installations mostly in the public space. He studied fine arts in Namur and Brussels. At first, strongly involved in urban art, his practice is influenced by graffiti and street culture.The last years his focus has shifted to classic painting.
His works can be seen in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Marseille where he lived for almost 10 years before settling in Norway from 2015.
https://www.instagram.com/muga_onair/
Izabela zółcińska
Artist, Poland.
Izabela Żółcińska is a polish-born artist based in Norway. She graduated from Fine Art Academy in Poznań, Poland. Her artistic practice is base on understanding of our corporeality as a liquid structure in connection to our Ecosystem. Particularly she interprets phenomena of fluids’ migration. With this subject, she is working within media as drawing, embroidery, sculpture, painting, installation including installations in public space. The establishing phase in Norway influenced her focus on site-specific installation in public defined as public water space. Her artistic methods are rooted in research and cross-disciplinary cooperation and explore anatomy, architecture, cognitive science, fluid mechanics and hydrobiology. She introduced the Capillary System as a visual language expressed in several realizations.
YACHI SHIAN
Visual artist, Taiwan.
Shian-Yuan, Yachi (f. 1983, Taipei, Taiwan) lives and works in Oslo. Yachi is educated with a bachelor (BFA) degree from Taipei National University of the Arts and a master (MFA) degree from Tunghai University, Fine Art Department in Taiwan. Yachi have worked as an oriental ink painter professionally for about 10 years in her homeland. She explores the motifs especially in classical flower and bird painting from this tradition. Her work shows care toward grace and suffers through humanity with a meditative attitude facing both chaos and beauty nowadays.
She is a member of ACTU-Art Creator Taipei Union, Taiwan, freelancer of ARTCO magazine, Taipei, Taiwan and co-founder of Gallery 26, Oslo.
RIC FRANCIS
Photojournalist, US
Originally from the U.S., Ric Francis is currently based in Oslo, Norway. A graduate of the City University of New York, he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications - Media Studies, 1989. Ric studied painting before switching to photojournalism (under Media Studies) because of a need to more realistically document his awareness of our shared humanity. His editorial photographs have appeared in Le Nouvel Observateur (L’OBS), Jeune Afrique, The Guardian, IRIN News, The New York Times and NBC.News.com. Currently he is working on a project about diversity and gentrification in Tøyen.
Araiz Mesanza
Araiz Mesanza (1983 Basque Country/Spain) is an artist and illustrator. She received her 5 years BFA from the Basque University of Art (Bilbao), and she holds a 3 years specialisation in illustration from the Art and design centre Escola Massana (Barcelona). She has worked as a freelance illustrator since 2009 and in 2011 she co-founded Ediciones Armadillo, an artist collective and publishing outlet releasing an annual collaborative illustration fanzine and other publications. Having relocated to Oslo in autumn of 2016 Mesanza has continued working as a independet illustrator and visual artist. Lately her personal projects has largely focused on exploring her relationship with her new surroundings, mainly around nature, through drawings, paintings and small installations.
https://www.araizmesanza.com
ANAS SALAMEH
Artist and animator, Syria
Anas Salameh is an Palestinian visual, animation and cartoon artist. He now lives in Norway and have been working on a number of exhibitions and works in public space in Norway and elsewhere. One of his most important work is a large serie of drawings and paintings from the everyday life in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus. The images have no colours and made with coffee and other everyday products. Salameh works mainly with painting and drawing, but also with installations and works in public space. A recent work is Fargelegg Ski with KORO.
Participating Artists Her og der program 2018 - 2019
Lucia Cristerna Aragón
Lucia Cristerna Aragón is a visual artist who is influenced by her Mexican heritage and her current surroundings in Norway. She works primarily between the mediums of wall paintings, video projections, printmaking and drawing, in which she questions the boundaries between socio political matters and the intangible myths and beliefs across cultures. Her artwork goes from intimate etchings as visual poetry to large scale wall paintings in public spaces.
Izabela zółcińska
Izabela Żółcińska is a polish born artist based in Norway. She graduated at Fine Art Academy in Poznań in Poland. Zolcinska is interested in corporeality as a connection between organisms and inorganic matter. Particularly she interprets phenomena of fluids’ migration. She introduced the Capillary System as a visual language expressed in several realizations. Her interdisciplinary work explores sensory perception, cognitive science, technology, anatomy, fluid mechanics, hydrology and architecture. Her projects take the form of: drawing, embroidery, sculpture, installation including installations in public space. Recently she worked with land art installation and meeting with nature in 1:1 scale, refresh her philosophy working with term of public.
itzel esquivel
Itzel Esquivel, recently based in Oslo and graduated at The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2017. Esquivel’s works, created in different techniques, reflects about minorities, micropolitics and violence, specifically gender violence from her native context: Mexico City. The pieces derived from this reflection, point out to the contradictions between Official History and micro-narratives; and in some cases, her pieces work as a sort of measuring devices. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, including Portrait/Anti-portrait (Art Faculty at UNAM, ENPEG La Esmeralda, Mexico City, 2017), The Eleventh Edition of the Contemporary Art Biennial Puebla de los Ángeles (Puebla, Mexico, 2017), The Third Edition of the Contemporary Art Biennial CMUCH (Puebla, Mexico, 2017), The Tenth Edition of the Contemporary Art Biennial Puebla de los Ángeles (Puebla, Mexico, 2017), and she has been recently pre-selected to be part of Bienal Sur, Argentina 2019. Her work has been published in La Jornada and Didasko Magazine.
Araiz Mesanza
.Araiz Mesanza (1983 Basque Country/Spain) is an artist and illustrator. She received her 5 years BFA from the Basque University of Art (Bilbao), and she holds a 3 years specialisation in illustration from the Art and design centre Escola Massana (Barcelona). She has worked as a freelance illustrator since 2009 and in 2011 she co-founded Ediciones Armadillo, an artist collective and publishing outlet releasing an annual collaborative illustration fanzine and other publications. Having relocated to Oslo in autumn of 2016 Mesanza has continued working as a independet illustrator and visual artist. Lately her personal projects has largely focused on exploring her relationship with her new surroundings, mainly around nature, through drawings, paintings and small installations.
Anas Salameh
Anas Salameh is an Palestinian visual, animation and cartoon artist. He now lives in Norway and have been working on a number of exhibitions and works in public space in Norway and elsewhere. One of his most important work is a large serie of drawings and paintings from the everyday life in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus. The images have no colours and made with coffee and other everyday products. Salameh works mainly with painting and drawing, but also with installations and works in public space. A recent work is Fargelegg Ski with KORO.
jakub baloun
Jakub Baloun (b.1990, Czechoslovakia) is a visual artist based in Oslo. He has worked with photography since he was 10 years old and combines his great interest in car culture and travelling with exploring connections. It has led to a number of works, such as "Dear Life", where photographing a series of events on an intersection led to two years long investigation of relationships in the city of Oslo. At the moment he studies service design at Westerdals and currently works on a mobile art residency project where he wishes to send various artists on a journey to self realisation and inner peace.
