unknown unknowns
2025

Recovered eroded and weathered bricks, clear silicon, crushed decommissioned harddrives, marine debris, broken toys, obsolete technology, risograph-printed publications and posters, recovered photographic prints on vinyl from a previous artwork, hand-knotted net of recovered marine rope, broken domestic textiles, visibly worn artworks (lanyards) and cables, recovered construction straps, mirrors.

Sandefjord Kunstforenings Kunstpris 2025

In 1900, man-made objects were equivalent to only 3% of global biomass. In 2020, the mass of these materials overtook that of all biological organisms, reaching a total of 1.1 teratonnes. So-called anthropogenic mass is projected to cause global biomass to triple by 2040.

What other choice do we have as artists than to deeply consider and engage in what a sustainable artistic practice could look like? I find myself simultaneously drawn to and repelled by the sheer quantity of man-made objects in this world.

The bricks sourced for the sculptures that are featured here were gathered over a calendar year, washed up on the shores of the island where I live: Jeløya. They almost certainly derive from Moss Teglverk: founded in 1807 by Henrik Gerner, shuttered in 1919, and demolished in 1940. These odd man-made objects in various states of weathering and erosion are still in a seemingly endless supply as of early 2025.

Two copies of an oversize photobook were featured in the installation. One copy was sculpturally splayed out upside down, while the other could be handled by the public. Each book has a unique cover fabricated from printed vinyl (usually considered to be single-use) recovered from another of my artworks that was exhibited in the 2022 Vårutstilling and in 2024 at the art museum KUBE in Ålesund. The golden stars glued to the covers were found, strewn and abandoned, on my local forest floor.

The digital images in known unknowns printed with an A2 risograph in three colors, are photographed over two decades, depict overconsumption, construction, and migration. In many ways, they describe both how I see the world and how the world has shaped me.

In the small mint green publication, given away to the audience during the exhibition period, I interviewed four other artists with a connection to Norway. All work collaboratively and/or experimentally, have shifting roles or identities, and create works that bind together the past, the present, and the future. The contributors: Makda Embaie, Callum Gilmour, Aidan Moseby, Pawel Stypula, Kate Ngan Wa Ao.

Documentation by Tor S. Ulstein / Kunstdok.