Agenda: Kunstnarbøker: Nær og fjern / Artists’ Books: Near and Far

Ethan Rafal, born 1983. Studied at Reed College in Portland, Oregon (USA). Lives and works in Oslo.Ethan Rafal is a photographic artist, curator, and activist. His work revolves around fieldwork and long-form research, material and process based photography, and an expanded publishing practice where photo books become a vehicle for performance, collaboration, and social interventions realized in public space.
For The Spring Exhibition 2022, Rafal is exhibiting selections from The Evening Pink (2011-2022), a decade-long Anti-Western comprised of unique photographic prints, books, and video- and film-based works. The Evening Pink was created in landscapes severely affected by wildfire, drought, the disruption of seasons, and the total breakdown of ecosystems. Many of these locations once served as iconic Western film sets — rephotographing these landscapes visualizes changes over the last 100 years. While these photographs depict contemporary North America, they are postcards of warning: these wildfires will come to Norway in the coming years.

Multipress is a non-commercial publishing house who specialize in artists’ books with an emphasis on photography. Multipress works project based with each publication and functions in this manner as a platform for artists that works with the publication as an arena for contemporary art, where the artist book becomes a discursive room where the can freely develop and experiment with the book format.
Multipress was founded in 2000 by the artists Anne-Grethe Thoresen and Marte Aas, and in 2013 they were joined by Line Bøhmer Løkken. Multipress has since 2000 published more than fifty books, among others Dikt for mine diktere by Gunvor Nervold Antonsen, Immersed in Stone - Black Ice by Line Bøhmer Løkken, The Eyes That Fix You in a Formulated Phrase by Mariken Kramer, All the Whisperings of the World by Siri Ekker Svendsen and the photofanzine series 1-28∞.

Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson is based in Oslo, Norway. His artistic practice involves photography, sculpture, curated projects and self-publishing. In recent years his works have been exploring different themes in which instrumentality is juxtaposed with temporality, yet also infused with consumer aesthetics and technical misunderstandings. His art offers an alternative view of our surroundings, fueled by the interactions and fluid connections between daily life, art-object and art-context, often combining different media and materials within one and the same body of work. Jóhannsson studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig from 2003–2009. Since 2012 he runs an independent small press under the imprint of Multinational Enterprises.

Jessica Williams (b. 1986), in her artistic process, collects objects from everyday life, which are then processed and refined. Through language, aesthetic collections, and tragicomedy, Williams’ work examines themes such as identity and humans’ relationship with nature, consumption, and technology. Collaboration across disciplines and media is an essential part of Williams’ work. Although her practice is firmly rooted in self-publishing and experimental artist books, she also works with photography, video, sculpture, and VR.
Lately, Williams has worked with an experimental solo exhibition that spans over an entire calendar year at House of Foundation in Moss and is concerned with publishing, community, and identity. She has previously worked with strange bits of ocean plastic foraged in the inner Oslofjord that look like bits of real rock, and investigated the connection between mycelium and data centers: both of which are gigantic, invisible and affect us more than we know. Her work has recently been exhibited at the National Museum, The Spring Exhibition at Fotogalleriet, ROM for art and architecture, and Skiens Kunstforening. In addition, she has held workshops in risography and self-publishing at Henie Onstad, Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art, the National Museum, and Gallery F15. In 2016, she started publishing as Hverdag Books, which has since grown into a full blown self-publishing workshop. Since 2018, she has been involved in the Norwegian Risograph Association, which has arranged several exhibitions, lectures and workshops in risography.

Hans Hamid Rasmussen was born in Algeria in 1963, he lives and works in Oslo and Rakkestad. Rasmussen studied at the Photo Academy at the Konstfack school of art in Stockholm and the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo. From 2004 to 2007, Rasmussen participated in a program for artistic research with the project Homage to a Hybrid supervised by the artist Nina Roos, the philosopher and curator Sarat Maharaj, and the curator Maaretta Jaukkuri. From 2008 to 2020, Rasmussen held a position as an amanuensis and professor in visual art at the subject area textile at the Art and Craft Department at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Rasmussen exhibits an upcoming solo show at Trafo Kunsthall in Asker on 11 March 2023. The artist recently published a book, Elva er et annet sted, in collaboration with Ellef Prestsæter, which includes a text by the author Per Petterson. Rasmussen held solo shows at Shoot Gallery in Oslo in 2020 and Martin Asbæk Gallery in Copenhagen in 2018. Additionally, Rasmussen has participated at the Biennale de Havana (2019), the Hangzhou Triennial of Fibre Art (2016), the Gothenburg International Biennial (2011), the 3rd Triennial in Guangzhou (2008), and the 26th São Paulo Biennale (2004). One can find Rasmussen's art represented in both public and private museum collections nationally and internationally.

Sara Skorgan Teigen (1984, Oslo, Norway) is an interdisciplinary artist, with a base in photography, installation and the artist`s book. She studied at Fatamorgana, The Danish School of Art Photography, Copenhagen (2008/09) and the ICP, International Center of Photography, New York, (2011/12), has a BA in Medium and Material based art at The National Academy of the Arts, Oslo (2018-2022), where she is currently doing a MFA. She has exhibited internationally at galleries, photo-festivals, fairs and biennalles in USA, Tokyo, China, Mexico, England, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Her two books Fractal State Of Being (Journal, 2014) and Sleeping State of Being (Journal, 2022) have been exhibited on three continents and have received several international prizes and nominees. Among these, the Paris Photo-Aperture Photo-book Awards, Author Book Award in Les Rencontres d´Arles, Best Photography Book of the Year Award The PHE15 and top 10 photobooks by Photoeye (USA). Teigen makes installations with the artist`s book in centrum. In 2019 Teigen transformed NW Gallery in Copenhagen to a sketchbook itself. Launching her latest book, she made an installation of textile work and artist's books shown in The Vigeland Museum(NO) and Nordic Light Festival(NO).

Anna Weilhartner uses artists' books as her main artistic language. Her works often enter into a dialogue with other art forms such as music, poetry, photography or painting. Book format and sequence of pages give her the opportunity to illuminate places, events and people from different angles. She has a master's in medium- and material-based art (KHiO 2022) and architecture (University of Applied Arts Vienna 2008).