What is Left Behind at Akershus Kunstsenter

Artists: Robin Danielsson, Silas Inoue, Sarah Vajira Lindström, Oliver Kunkel, Theis Wendt

Exhibition title: What is Left Behind

Curated by: Monica Holmen

Venue: Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm, Norway

Date: September 29 – October 29, 2017

Photography: Istvan Virag, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm

Theories on cause and effect have been much discussed by philosophers such as Aristotle and David Hume. There is a logical and irrevocably connection between cause and effect, action and consequence. Under different guises, these are some of the underlying notions in the exhibition What is Left Behind. The five participating artists base their projects on topics spanning from nature catastrophes and ecological conditions, to contemplation and research on process and formal questions in the studio. Nuclear test bombings, invasive and extinct species, food and flesh, artistic processes and exploration are also key words. Consequences of actions – spanning from those seemingly insignificant to the more tumultuous and disruptive outcomes – are scrutinized and reflected upon. Faced with the different pieces in the exhibition it becomes clear how these topics resonate in visual art, but also the outcomes of artistic actions as such. What traces does an artist leave behind in a piece? To what extent are left-overs from the process visible in a finished piece? And how might local and global conditions echo in a piece of art?

About the works

With the two-channel video installation Invisible Presence consisting of Trinitite stones, Theis Wendt poses questions about human’s relationship to nature, and the much-debated geological age of anthropocen who many now believe we have entered. These topics are also mirrored in the series Sunk, consisting of aluminium casts of modified Styrofoam. Given how Styrofoam takes 500 years to degenerate, they may come off as fossils from the future.

References to ecological conditions are also very much at place in Oliver Kunkel’s project. Through photography, sculpture, wall-painting and food served during the opening, the consequences of invasive as well as extinct species – and where to place the blame – is scrutinized. Is it all due to evolution, or are humans to blame?

With abstract images made from mould, and sculptures made from sugar and cooking oil, Silas Inoue points towards decay and eternal existence. Mould is the most significant degenerative organism in nature, yet associated with danger, thus Inoue’s works may be pointing towards the ecological collapse that continuously takes place. On the other hand, the shape of the sculptures is loosely based on a regenerative organism in the ocean, making its existence next to eternal.

While large, global aspects are at stake in some of the works, Sarah Vajira Lindström deals with something much closer. Through meticulously coloured, shaped and embroidered textile objects, she poses questions about the human body, our relationship to the human body, and flesh as meat. Which meat can be eaten, and which cannot? How does the perception of a body alter, depending on if it is healthy or not?

Robin Danielsson too deals with the immediate environment. Forms and shapes inspired from the surroundings serve guidelines and components in large-scale paintings. Gestures and strokes are covered by the next one, thus leaving traces of the process within the image. Organic lines and abstract shapes surface, and even though they retain a non-figurative impression, associations to landscape might linger in the background, but also nature’s and human’s ephemerality.