Kristiansand 25.04.24
written notes by outside eye, benjamin pohlig
1.
When I arrive at Kristiansand Kunsthall Sunniva is in the far end of the gallery. She greets me,sees that I have quite the cold and leads me to the workshop space to drop off my luggage. We return to the gallery space, for me to have a look at the exhibition that she inhabits. We take a detour to her work corner. It is something I spotted out of the corner of my eye immediately on arrival. It consists of some of the working questions written out on a paper, a couple of collages of text and image materials arranged, and a sort of work diary for each day. It just lies there by the big windows, ready to be approached, becoming part of the exhibition. If I immediately noticed it, how do others relate to it?
2.
We go and see the exhibition from beginning to end. I don't even know the name of the artist (Anna Sigmond Gudmundsdottir) yet but they are stunning works. Graphic, strong lines compartmentalising the canvas. Though seemingly abstract they introduce figurative elements. The outlines of letters, people and trees can be seen as the arrangement of lines itself curve to resemble shapes such as tree trunks. I have to think of the word topology. Also because I know Julia (a friend) just finished her PhD on it. But also because Sunniva is interested in concepts of physics to question our assumptions of time and space as commonly understood in dance.
luft deals with the air as conduit for feelings, memories and ghostly manifestations of what remains in the air between people and things.
4.
The audience that is present during the rehearsals often comes for the exhibition not the dancing. They might not even know that a dance is taking place, or what its (not-)relation to the exhibition is. Yet, this confusion, this overlap between boundaries, is this perhaps when the questioning of assumptions can more clearly be experienced by the artist in doing? What is this space, this time in relation to what we think of stage time and stage space in general?
5.
While I am writing this Sunniva has begun to dance. First in the back, then moving through to the entry of gallery and out of my view. But she leaves me with some visitors that had just taken the reverse journey and ended up with me. Sunniva spoke shortly to them, telling them what she is doing. Immediately they want to know how it relates to the exhibition, only that it doesn't (yet it does now!). They themselves, if they know it or not, are now having to negotiate questions of theatrical norm. How are they to be an audience, to both the art and the dance? And who is this man writing on the bench, does he belong?
6.
Want I take from Sunniva's proposal is ultimately a collision, a coexistence of her artistic questions, with questions around artistic norms, without a demand for answers. But instead as an invitation to remain in them. I ask myself what is “this” space and what is “its” time, and how can we, visitors, collaborators and artists negotiate it in order to understand the choices at our disposal when we have the opportunity to remain, in our questions.
funded and supported by Scenekunst sør and supported by kristiansand kunsthall
3.
How fitting to then both be sharing (co-habiting) space with these pictures that question the line between the abstract and the figurative. But also to be doing this active questioning in a gallery space rather than a dance studio or theatre. The questioning of assumptions takes place at the border of multiple intersections. What is a rehearsal, when it takes place publicly with an unwitting audience? What is the performance when it is preceded by another sort of performance, that of the open rehearsal beforehand? How are these borders and spaces marked? How is its time negotiated? And how does the dancing co-exist with the exhibition?