Liv Bugge

Liv Bugge studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Belgium. She completed her PhD, "The Other Wild: Touching Art as Confrontation", at Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2019. Bugge’s research explores how mechanisms in society are internalized and contribute to the maintaining of normative notions and ethics around, for example, such dichotomies as life and non-life or human and nature. Liv has a practice informed by queer and feminist perspectives and was during the period 2012-2020 running the platform FRANK together with artist Sille Storihle.

Bugge has had solo presentations at, among other places: Marabouparken Konsthall in Stockholm, Kunstnernes Hus and Intercultural Museum in Oslo, and Sørlandets Kunstmuseum in Kristiansand. She is part of the 2022 Venice Biennale and has previously presented work at among others Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art.

What I am working on now / current interests

In my latest work Goliat, Draugen & Maria (2021) I am interested in addressing the creature of oil, to try to feel, think and be with the fact that we put our ancestors on fire, and what that kind of worship means and is? The work comprises three sculptures and a film. Cast in moulds made from 3Dprinted models of marine landscapes, the sculptures show the topography of the seabed (bathymetry) in three of the few oilfields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf with publicly available geodata: Draugen and Maria on Haltenbanken in the Norwegian Sea and Goliat in the Barents Sea. The work’s accompanying film can be accessed via smartphone or tablet by downloading the free Goliat, Draugen & Maria app and scanning one of the sculptures. Using augmented-reality technology, the app enables virtual elements to be hosted within real-world settings. In Goliat, Draugen & Maria, I look to explore our relationship with oil by posing the question: “What points of contact do we have with crude oil other than as refined end-products?” In Norway, as in other oil-producing nations, oil affects the national narrative, language, politics and economy. The film documents the reactions of a group of people as they encounter crude oil from the Vigdis field for the first time.

Pedagogical approach and expectations of students

The best and the most learning is happening within the group, and I expect the students to work on each other’s work during group- critiques (which I call group-efforts). Everyone is to learn something new from each other, the work, and our surroundings. I want to develop a group effort environment that feels equally safe and productive for the students, where all students both work on their own development, but also work on the development of the other students in the groups work. I find that group critique how it is carried out in its traditional form many times is knowledge- and tradition conforming, meaning normative in its format, and that the students are aiming at showing off what they already know, and many times producing critique in the negative understanding of the word, looking for the problematic and unfinished, underdeveloped sides of a students work, instead of working on lifting the whole together. Coming from a norm-critical background of practice myself, I find it interesting to see how the configuration of working method can enhance the learning outcome of a format.