Tris Vonna-Michell

Tris Vonna-Michell works in various media and is based in Oslo and Stockholm. Recent works can be found in numerous public collections such as Serralves Museum, Porto, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Centre National Des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), Paris, Tate Modern, London, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg. Vonna-Michell has exhibited widely in museums, biennales and galleries, most recently at Jan Mot in Brussels in March 2022. Vonna-Michell’s work utilizes a plethora of technical devices, modes of presentation and installation approaches, encompassing performance, audio recordings, slide projections, poetry, sound poetry, printed matter, photography and 16mm-film.

What I am working on now / current interests

In recent years I have spent more time addressing and trying to overcome media archeological concerns and challenges. Since now it is not only in my own work, but also in my dad´s publishing project Balsam Flex, which he ran from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, and many of his multimedia works which I am only now discovering. I am still in the initial phase of sorting, assembling, and inventorying the various media components that belonged to many of his works, trying to decipher which formats were used and which are still available or transferrable in some way. Even though I’m not sure what direction these conservation efforts will lead me, it feels like the right starting point for producing new works or discovering forgotten or concealed works. Concerning my own work, after performing intensely for over a decade my practice developed more so into film and slide installations, in which documentation strategies served an integral role. That is still the case for how I am currently working, and since analogue photography, film and voice narrations continue to play a big part in my practice there is still this constant integration and reworking of other works, timelines, and documentation formats.

Pedagogical approach and expectations of students

My pedagogical approach is based on giving practical and well-grounded guidance on working across the range of different media and in a local as well as an international art world/context, while offering students a broad perspective on the intricacies and politics of artistic production, presentation, and mediation. My approach to individual tutorials is to gradually build up an understanding with the student and their practice by finding a vocabulary to share and articulate ideas. I always encourage having a close dialogue with their writing practice, and since I have worked extensively with text, I am comfortable in doing so. Concerning how the group critiques are scheduled and conducted throughout each semester it is important that there is a sense of codetermination from the group as a collective, since this will help nurture dialogue and motivation as well as guide them in addressing criticality within their working process. In giving feedback I strive to be as concrete and constructive as possible.