”GLASFJORDEN” bokslepp, Messen og Kabuso

How does an artist, who comes from the other side of the world experiences the meeting with Norway and Norwegians?

The Australian poet, artist and literature professor Kit Kelen has travelled many times to the artist residency KHMessen in Ålvik. During his residency months he was inspired to write poems about the landscape, the seasons and people. These poems are now published in Australia. One of the poems “Takk for alt” was awarded by the annual journal “Best Australian Poems”.

The book ”Glasfjorden” is a selection of poems of Kelens “Hardanger poems”, translated in Norwegian by Odveig Klyve. 

Saturday 1. juni kl 16 30 book release in Messen, Ålvik, and
Sunday 2. juni kl 14 30 in Kabuso, where Kit Kelen and Odveig Klyve will read poems of ”Glasfjorden” in Norwegian and English. Those who will visit the book release receive an free version.

Background
Here is a fragment of a Poor Man’s Coat in Australia:

”The poems focus on the poet’s self and its interactions with a very distinctive environment. It’s not just that the emphasis is on sky, clouds, rain, mountain, trees, fjord, what is more important is the way the locations make the interaction (and arrangement) of these elements absolutely specific. The blue sky usually appears between trees and its appearances are determined by the season; similarly, the sun is always seen in different positions dependent on its season”…”Since seasonality becomes more important the closer one gets to the poles it’s no surprise that two of the book’s divisions include poems of summer and poems of autumn. The poems of the former celebrate the dominance of sun and warmth: the fjord (“a little whale’s way”) looks like a glass mirroring the sky, ivy “strikes up / as if just thought of” and the sun is “reluctant to set”.–Australian Poetry review by Martin Duwell 

”Hardanger is a region in Norway. It is a place noted for its beautiful landscape, especially its mountains and fjord, as well as its cultural heritage.  The poems in this collection were drafted there, during two residencies in the town of Ålvik…”

 Now that Poor Man’s Coat has been published, I predict that Ålvik is going to be deluged with applications from poets wanting to go there.  Even if we could tap into just a little of the inspiration Kit found, surely it would be worth it!”   

”Scattered through Poor Man’s Coat, are some striking black and white photographs: tall trees, a human shadow over low stone, shining light on the fjord … One of them is of a gravestone, on which the words translate to “Thanks for everything”.  That could be an apt summary of the overall feeling of this collection. Although there’s room here for sardonic questioning and a curiosity about why so many graves would have that inscription, there is a kind acknowledgement in these poems that life is good, and that it is worthy of a thank you.

That is also what I want to say after reading Poor Man’s Coat. “Takk for alt”, Kit. Thank you for everything. It has been a great joy to read this collection.  There is a whole, charmed world in this book and I cannot recommend it too highly.”

Greetings
Odveig Klyve

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Wim van den Toorn / NL / Paintings  http://www.wimvandentoorn.com
I’m a painter of Dutch origin who has been living and working in Norway since 2008. Solidly trained as a painter at the Art Academy in Enschede my work has developed in a steady and consequent direction since finishing my Master in 1997. In the course of my career I’ve received a prize for young painters and been granted several scholarships from the Dutch Art Council. This has made possible a continuous focus on the development of my work.

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Melody Loveless / USA / Digital media artist.  http://melody-loveless.squarespace.com
Melody Loveless is a digital media artist, educator, and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work ranges from pieces for electronic and acoustic instruments, live coding performances, wearable game controllers, interactive media, sound installations, and more. Alongside maintaining an active practice as a technology and art educator in the New York City area, she performs often with Codie, a live-coding trio that performs ephemeral works by coding music and visuals live on a stage. She has had performances at Performance Space New York, the New York Hall of Science, and Eyebeam. Past honors include being an Artist in Residence at Gamli Skoli in Iceland. She holds a B.A. in Music from he University of Nevada – Las Vegas, a M.M. in Music Composition from New York University – Steinhardt, and a M.S. in Integrated Digital Media from New York University – Tandon.

Blue (2016) is an interactive installation inspired by the ocean and the works of La Monte Young. This work uses a web camera and a microphone to react to the audience and the space around it.

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Dorian Temming / the Netherlands / visual artist.  http://doriantemming.com
The drawings of Dorian Temming are often idea sketches for images in a room.
The images do not always end up there, the drawings become independent works. Space studies, for the space imagined. It often starts with two or three lines that divide the space. From there she starts sketching. Themes such as daily objects, food, succession and people and nature in its cooperation and opposition inspire her. This produces strange or unusual connections between the objects.

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Paola Ruiz Molto / Spain / Interdisciplinary artist.  https://paolaruizmolto.com/
Running away from panoramic city model, arise the need to build new realities from the perspective of memory and experiences. I am interested in working from projects on a particular subject, research in relation to the archival documentation, the text as an artistic proposal. Projects with a common point, nature and memory, history and tradition, weaving a network of learning and new structures, converge in sculptural installations, often ephemeral pieces, using textile and organic materials of the environment, reinterpreting craft techniques under a contemporary look , establishing a relationship between sound, space + nature, recording the process through drawings, audio tracks, videos – diary and weaving new structures.
Now I give a twist to my artistic work with fresh air, Interpreting the morphology of the landscape in textile sculptures with vegetable fibers.

Project realized during stay in the international residence of artists, Air Van Gogh House. Zundert, Netherlands, 2014. Title: Building my own garden Material: Esparto Hand-knitted.

Congratulations to all the selected artists for 2019!

Adi Hoffman (Israel)
Alt Går Bra (Norway)
Barbara Höller (Austria)
Carissa Baktay (Iceland) and Neil Martin Horvath (Iceland)
Carmi Weingrod (USA)
Carol Archer (Australia)
Catherine Sheedy (Canada)
Christopher (Kit) Kelen (Australia)
Dabal Kim (South Korea) and Dong Hun Sung (South Korea)
Dorian Temming (the Netherlands)
Filipa Pontes Lança (Portugal)
Heike Endemann (Germany)
Helen Horgan (Ireland)
Hyang An, Lee (South Korea)
Ingrid Simons (the Netherlands)
Iris Blauensteiner (Austria)
Jamie McGhee (USA)
Jasper Llewellyn (UK)
Joanna Rotkin (USA)
Kala Pierson (USA)
Kjersti Lande (Norway)
Lindsey Dezman (USA)
Lucia Veronesi (Italy)
Maya Økland (Norway)
Melody Loveless (USA)
Monica Auch (the Netherlands)
Nicolette Klerk (the Netherlands)
Paola Ruiz Molto (Spain)
Paul Burn (Germany)
Sandra Kruisbrink (the Netherlands)
Sandy Harris (UK)
Sidsel Nielsen Bonde (Danmark)
Silke Panknin (Germany)
Susanna Crum (USA) and Rodolfo Salgado Jr (USA)
Tero Juuti (Finland)
Tom Faber (UK)
Vardi Bobrow (Israel)
Ville Tanttu (Finland) and Anastasios Strikos (Finland)
Zoie So (Hong Kong)