​MARIANNE SKJELDAL

CoSA 2017 

In 2017 CoSA started out as a collaboration between the artists Inger-Reidun Olsen and Marianne Skjeldal (LATERNA) and Thale Fastvold and Tanja Thorjussen (LOCUS). Through our various artistic practices in performance art, dance, photography and drawing, LATERNA and LOCUS were collaborating throughout 2017 in exploring the spiritual in contemporary art as well as researching the spiritual in art that unfolded 100 years ago in Europe. Through our collaboration we wanted to merge performative- and visual arts traditions and to share knowledge and experience from each other's practices.

​In the early 1900s Wassily Kandinskys’ publication “Concerning the spiritual in art” (1911) was published and many other artists such as Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, was influenced by spiritism, séances and alternative lifestyles, among others vegetarianism. In the last years we have seen a return of the spiritual expressed in contemporary art, especially in connection to ecological and environmental thinking, renewed focus on indigenous knowledge and our relationship to nature.

CoSA 2017 aimed to channel and interpret the spirit of places (Genius Loci) into our artworks. By travelling to and exploring sites with spiritual reference or history, meeting with people and nature in these places, we recreated lost rituals and created new artworks. 

​Our first journey together took us on a research trip to Monte Veritá in Switzerland, followed by our project initiation in Athens during Documenta 14 opening week (April 2017) in collaboration with The Norwegian Institute at Athens, with performance and book launch. Our next event took place at summer solstice at Áhkánjárstábba/Stalloen, in Kvalsund, Hammerfest, in Norway, followed by a performance and exhibition at the museum of St. Petersburg Avantgarde in St. Petersburg, and another performance-event during Dansefestival Barents in Hammerfest in November. LOCUS pulled out of the collaboration in spring 2018, as the project was awarded funding for another 3 years, due to the workload and engagement that this timespan would demand.

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Planting Seeds

2017 was a lot about ‘planting seeds’ and initiating collaborations. Little did we know that many of these would become long lasting. Much of the methodological work in CoSA can be traced back to LATERNA´s collaboration even before the CoSA-project; an interest in inner work and meditation as a form of deeper listening, stemming from a philosophy and belief in that inner politics become outer politics - and action. We shared a wish to acknowledge inner imagery and intuition experienced through meditations, and to use these as tools in our art practice and creation, as well as in dialogue and community with others. A question we had all this time, and still ask, is; Can we, by making art, tune in and connect to places, people and more-than-human life forms and achieve a condition of connection, conversation, community and togetherness?

 

CoSA- Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Part 2 (2018-2022) 

​​May 2018 the CoSA project again received funding from the Norwegian Arts Council.

​CoSA (2018-2022) is founded in the artistic work and research made during CoSA 2017, when we visited Athens (GR), Monte Verità (CH), Kvalsund/Hammerfest (NO), St. Petersburg (RU) and made performative work in each place. 

 

CoSA´s aim in ‘Part 2’ is on one hand still the same; to channel and interpret the spirit of places into our artworks and performances and explore sites with spiritual reference or history (memory) by recreating lost rituals and creating new artworks. During the years of research in CoSA´s Part two, the work has grown upon us, and more layers have revealed themselves. Layers of listening, community and attention to more-than-human worlds, has made the work develop organically and grow, almost like a fungi-network, where people, places and plants co-exist in an artistic ecology.

 

During 2017, we learned that “spiritual”, to us, is mostly related to our connection to nature, to place, to people. Together with other artists, practitioners and scholars, we are tracing history and creating new ways of shaping communities, gathering collectives grounded in an artistic ecology, where everything exists in a context and develops over time through regular practice and methodological investigations. Our works have so far taken place at historical places like Monte Verità, Ascona (CH), Steilneset Memorial, Vardø (NO), the Museum of St. Petersburg Avantgarde, St. Petersburg (RU) and at Black Box Teater in Oslo. Touching borderlands of dance, choreography, ritual and healing, the artworks are relational, make places accessible and open space for dialogue and transformation.  

 

CoSAs Part two consists of site-specific performances, artist books, workshops, cyclic choreographic practices like Tree Talks, the choreographic growing of sister gardens in two countries (NO/RU), sharing of Anna Halprin´s Planetary Dance Ritual, a festival at Black Box teater in Oslo, a collective gathering at Monte Verità (CH) and a return to Athens - were we initiated our project in 2017. See www.laternalaterna.org for more info!

 

Artists and people involved in CoSA project:

Robert Steijn (NL), Dohee Lee (US/KR), Milla Wexels Riser (NO), Keith Hennessy (US/CA), Geir Hytten (NO), Lisa Jeannin (SE/FR), Rolf Schuurmans (SE/NL), Ingeborg S. Olerud (NO), Fernanda Branco (NO/BS), Ingvild Langgård (NO), Terje Tjøme Mossige (NO), Daniel Slåttnes (NO), Sara Rönnbäck (NO/SE), Pernille Bønkan (NO), Per Platou (NO), Randi Nystrøm (NO), Riika Storck (NO), Anastasia Zakharova (RU), Anastasia Patsey (RU), Julia Adzuki (AU/SE), Kyuja Bae (KR/NO), Ezra Fieremans (BE), Stephanie Maher (US/DE), Liv Kristin Holmberg (NO/DE), Jakob Schnack Krog (DK), Lilach Pnina Livne (IL), Christoph Leuenberger (CH), Raúl Vargas Torres (CO/NO), Daniel Zimmermann (AT), Ekaterina Shelganova (RU), Anastasia Patsey (RU), Liza Bobkova (RU), Anastasya Kizilova (RU), Bill Mobech (NO), Kristjan Belgau (NO), André Wulf (NO/DE), Fili Olsefski (GR), Rino Engdal (NO), Tanja Thorjussen (NO) and Thale Fastvold (NO).

 

CoSA project is supported by: Arts Council Norway, KORO (Art in Public Spaces), Black Box teater,  Oslo Municipality - Bydel Grünerløkka Grønne Midler, The Audio and Visual Fund, Stikk.no and The Norwegian Institute at Athens  

 

Collaborators and co-producers: Black Box teater, Varanger Museum, Statens vegvesen and National tourist routes, the Museum of St. Petersburg Avantgarde, Foundation Monte Verità, Skajaa Arkitekter, Bollinger + Grohmann v/ Michael Lommertz, Unikum AS, Kvalsund kommune, Vardøhus fortress and Dansefestival Barents 

 

‘Hidden Connections - Visible Ecologies’ - Festival at Black Box teater - June 2022

June 21st-25th 2022 LATERNA curated and hosted a 5-day festival at Black Box Theatre in Oslo. 

The festival Hidden Connections - Visible Ecologies was an attempt to create the festival that we ourselves would have loved to be part of - created with care and listening - with space to think together, re-evaluate old truths, use our senses and share ideas about new ways of coexisting and understanding the world we are part of - as well as our own time - with all its challenges.

 

The title gestures toward the relations - vital, wild, creative processes - that are always present - between us - as people - and between us and the natural world - yet not always visible. The festival is honoring and celebrating all the relationships with fellow artists, scholars, landscape, beings of the more-than-human world that has grown through these years with the CoSA-project, which we invite to shape the festival with us. 

 

As curators of this festival, we were inspired by both new and ancient understandings of life and matter and collective wisdom across species. As dance- and performance artists we are interested in bodies, relationships, and togetherness. With this as a backdrop, the festival became a place where we together could cultivate the collective, engage our senses and explore challenges and changes that our time is calling for.

 

We were inviting for five days with different topics under the same umbrella - with reflection, listening and wondering towards a new future with workshops or Activation sessions, performances and conversations across different fields.

The different days carry the headlines Conversation with Place, Conversation with Spirits, …with Healing, with the more-than-human and at last - Conversation with the Universe! where we hosted legendary Anna Halprin´s collective ritual for peace - Planetary Dance - open to all, no matter background, age and abilities.

Here you can read more about the festival: https://blackbox.no/nb/festival-hidden-connections-visible-ecologies/ 

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