THE SPACE BETWEEN HERE AND THERE

Please join us for the opening of The Space Between Here and There, with Siri Hermansen and Ariel Reichman! On the opening there will also be an artist talk, moderated by Kjetil Røed, critic in Aftenposten.

About the exhibition:
The exhibition The Space Between Here and There presents two artists who come together through shared experiences, turning their own observations from residencies in Jerusalem into artistic expressions. The conflict zone’s severe consequences form an underlying note to the exhibition, yet the artists’ gaze brings the viewers elsewhere.

One example is Siri Hermansen’s (b. 1969) film Dreaming in the Stonebed Valley, which takes the Jerusalem Bird Observatory as point of departure. The observatory was established by Israeli activists as a protest against the occupation of the West Bank. Their approach to this is based on how the building activity in the area deprives millions of migratory birds of the chance to rest on their twice-a-year journey between Asia and Europe.

The film also provides insight into the border control between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. In order to avoid the massive morning queues at the checkpoint, a group of Palestinians have built resting places of rocks in an olive grove nearby the border, which has created remarkable changes in nature.

In much the same way, our perception is also directed outwards by Ariel Reichman’s (b. 1979) work. A painting of a blue sky dotted with white clouds turns out to portray the aftermath of a missile interception, where the clouds are actually smoke from the colliding missiles. Other works call up associations to a barrier, but Reichman’s concrete columns are unlikely to provide the protection needed. Perhaps instead they serve as images of the insecure situation that defines the area?

Another aspect of Reichman’s work is the filtering of the world through screens. As viewers and outsiders, we don’t actually experience the reality of the situation in a conflict zone as such; we only see it filtered through screens. The question then becomes: how does this filtered perspective influence our understanding of a distant reality?

How is it, then, to lead a life where anxiety and unrest are a natural part of life itself? Could one ever really get used to such a situation? Darwin once said that it is not the strongest that survive, or the most intelligent, but rather the species that are the most adaptable.

In this exhibition it is the area between the extremes – “the space between” – that is explored. Consequently, the art works can be seen as means to try to understand human strategies for survival, tied to universal circumstances. Not least, it is an attempt to bring forth other perceptions and perspectives in a conflict dominated by polarised depictions.
 

Curator: Rikke Komissar