Past Residents
Past Resident2017: OCA - Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Damir Avdagic
Damir Avdagic is an interdisciplinary artist who uses performance, video and text to address issues of historical memory and identity. By collecting and performing dialogues that are circumscribed by a single historical event, Avdagic reflects on how history is passed, consciously or unconsciously, to the next generation, and its effects on cultural identity, nationality and the self. The historical background for Avdagic’s body of work is the civil war in former Yugoslavia (1991-1995) from which his family fled in 1993 to Norway.
Damir Avdagic (born 1987, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina) obtained a degree from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and holds an MFA from The University of California in Los Angeles. Avdagic has exhibited internationally at Another Space, Copenhagen; KALA Art Institute, Berkeley; Fotogalleriet, Oslo; and Entree Galleri, Bergen, Norway, amongst others. He is the recipient of several grants and prizes, including The Fulbright Scholarship, the NORAM scholarship from Norway-America Association, and BKH’s Photo Art Prize.
Damir Avdagic, Prevodenje(Translation), 2014, SD-video and sound, 16:13 min.
Damir Avdagic, Reenactment/Process, 2016, Video installation, Dimensions variable.
Damir Avdagic, Reenactment/Process, 2016, Video installation, Dimensions variable.
Past Resident2016: Kim? Contemporary Art Centre
Ieva Epnere
Ieva Epnere works with photography, video, and film. Personal and intimate stories are the starting points for her artistic reflections on identity, tradition, and ritual.
Ieva Epnere lives and works in Riga, Latvia. Recent solo shows include Pyramiden and other stories, Zachęta Project Room, Warsaw, 2015; A No-Man’s Land, An Everyman’s Land, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, 2015; Waiting Room, Contretype, Brussels, 2015; and Ieva Epnere, Galerie des Hospices, Canet-en-Roussillon, France, 2014. Group exhibitions include Identity. Behind the Curtain of Uncertainty, National Art Museum of Ukraine, 2016; Something eerie, Signal – Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden, 2015; Ritualia, Oudenaarde-Ename, Belgium; Le fragole del Baltico, Careof, Milan, 2015; Ornamentalism. The Purvītis Prize, Arsenale, Venice, 2015; and 62nd International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany, 2015.
Ieva Epnere, Four Edges of Pyramiden, 2015, HD video, 20 min.
Ieva Epnere, Extreme Fugue for One Voice. Laima, 2013, HD video, 5 min.
Ieva Epnere, A No-man's Land, An Everyman's Land, 2015, Photograph, Dimensions variable.
Ieva Epnere, Renunciation, 2014, HD video, 20 min.
Past Resident2017: Hasselblad Foundation
Espen Gleditsch
Espen Gleditsch is an artist whose work juxtaposes photographs, texts and objects. His projects often put in dialogue text and image to enable a variety of perspectives on a common theme. Through this association, viewers’ interpretations of the works vacillate between a rational, cognitive understanding and a visual system of symbols. Gleditsch’s intellectual and artistic process often starts with a narrative that navigates between fact and fiction. His work raises fundamental philosophical questions regarding our ability to survive in a secular society without dreams and fantasies–which allow us to transcend our rational understanding of reality.
Espen Gleditsch (born 1983) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Gleditsch received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Art of the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2015. Gleditsch’s work has been presented in solo shows at Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 2016; Noplace, Oslo, 2016; Fotogalleriet [Format], Malmö, 2015; Haugesund kunstforening, Norway 2013; and MELK, Oslo, 2012. Group shows include Kunstnernes Hus; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 2015; Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, 2014, 2010; Austin Centre for Photography, 2014; and Fotogalleriet, Oslo, 2013.
Events & Exhibitions
Fall Open Studios 2016
November 4–November 5, 2016
Espen Gleditsch, A Place by the Sea, 2016, Archival inkjet print on cotton paper, 19 × 24 in. (48.26 × 60.96 cm).
Espen Gleditsch, A Place by the Sea, 2016, Photography and text.
Espen Gleditsch, White Lies, 2015, Photography and hand made wood sculptures.
Espen Gleditsch, Sphere, 2015, Solid birch and spray paint, 10 in. diameter.