Prøverommet on Atlas initiatief

Catching the big fish &
Floating up from the sea/fisherman’s wharf

by Joey Bravo

Joey Bravo explores the absurdity of life underwater in the new sculpture series Catching the big fish. The sculptures in this series consider the eccentric silliness of sea creatures, juxtaposing this with the strange objects humans use to bring themselves into the uninhabitable world of the sea. Alongside two pieces from the series will be a test reading of a new text work titled Floating up from the sea/fisherman’s wharf.

Joey Bravo is a ceramic artist using textiles, ready-made and found objects to make multimedia installations that connect ecological and queer politics. His work imagines new habitats for more-than-human beings, utilizing queer aesthetics and queering the use of human objects and spaces.

lines and color

By Valter West

“I play with materials and colors until I hear a loud bang and something special is born
I sit on the floor with pen and paper, drawing my way forward
I sit in a chair with a brush in my hand, imagining life as ecstatic
With my hands on the material I search.”  

Valter West, born 2000, is in his first year at the art academy in Bergen. In his practice, he works with multiple techniques such as painting, sculpture, and drawing. The process is playful and balances spontaneity with careful calculation.

Som fisken i vattnet

By Malin Arnedotter Bengtsson

Som fisken i vattnet is an attempt to upgrade the human body to a sea-compatible version. Through diet, hydration, and repetition, the flesh is pressed into a fish-like future – an adaptation to an ongoing water takeover.

Malin Arnedotter Bengtsson received her MFA in Bergen in 2022 and has exhibited at Studio 17 in Stavanger, Galleri Kronborg in Bergen and Vallentuna Kulturhus, as well as in group exhibitions in Armenia, Belgium and the USA. She has made performance works at Moderna Museet and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. Her interdisciplinary practice involves performance, sculpture and time-based expressions, where humor and absurdity meet posthumanist and feminist perspectives. Malin often works with masks and costumes in absurd future stories.

Undersea Dérive

By Karina Sletten

For Prøverommet Karina Sletten will perform one of the ‘situationists’ techniques for experimentation and exploration of urban space through spontaneous and unplanned walks through urban areas. Where in the 50s and 60s they wanted to experience the psychogeographic and atmospheric in urban space, Sletten takes a deep dive into the abstract, and explores how the sea as a space and area is expressed via language and semiotics. The walk thus becomes an investigation of the sea without being in direct contact with it, but understanding it from various texts, words and expressions that are used about the sea and its geography. The work is shown as a video work, and wanders through different understandings of the sea as a space that embraces many myths and understandings.

Karina Sletten is an artist and noise musician who explores spatiality through sound, place, and time. Her work centers around how we experience the spaces we frequent and how we produce images of landscape and place with our experiences and ways of perceiving the world. Sletten holds an MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Art and Public Space, and has recently participated in Høstutstillingen, Connecting Commutes in Braga (PT), and Murmuration#6 with Jez Riley French and Pheobe Riley Law.

Texts used as inspiration for the project:
Stephanie Hessler – Tidalectics. Imagining an Oceanic Worldview through Art and Science
Sigmond, Bryhni, Jorde – Norsk Geologisk Ordbok
Salomé Voegelin – The Political Possibility of Sound