Welcome to the opening of I Stand at the Treshold by Andreas Siqueland, Saturday 21st June 2pm!
about the project
What happens when one type of nature is privileged over another? Can human selection of nature recreate the natural biodiversity and the interaction between plants, fungi, animals and insects? Andreas Siqueland’s project at Harpefoss Art Arena is an attempt to immerse himself in a sci-fi-like and fictionalized world where he looks more closely at these issues.
After the construction of Okulus – a walkway that functions as a forest observatory and exhibition space for art in an old untouched forest – a distinction was created between different types of nature in the landscape. The overgrown cultural landscape that the public passes on the way to Okulus appears to be left to itself. Here you will find a path and a road that take you on a journey between the ruins of old buildings and structures related to the station area at Harpefoss.
In contrast to Okulus, this is an overgrown landscape where the ruins of human activity create blind spots and dangers. What was once a bustling cultural landscape is more or less inaccessible today. With this starting point, Andreas Siqueland will work with installations in the landscape that are connected to the site.
All photos: Siri Leira
See map and list of works here
Abot the artist
Andreas Siqueland (b. 1973) lives and works in Hadeland. He is educated at the Haut École de Design et Art in Geneva and the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 2013 he completed his fellowship at the Academy of Fine Arts / Oslo National Academy of Fine Arts. In addition to his own practice, he collaborates with Anders Kjellesvik in the artist duo aiPotu. Siqueland works mainly with painting and has for many years looked at the relationship the painting has to the place where it is made and displayed. The relationship to the body, translation, repetition and memory are central elements in the working process. The work takes place both indoors and outdoors, which helps to raise awareness of the choices made along the way. In recent years, Siqueland’s work has taken the form of extensive painting installations.
In 2015, Andreas Siqueland crossed the North Atlantic in a sailboat. Paintings made before, during and after the journey were first shown in the autumn of 2016 in the exhibition Painting across the Atlantic at the Regina Rex in New York. Later, a more extensive installation was shown at gallery F15 in Moss in the winter of 2017. In the latter exhibition, Siqueland was given a loan from Momentum Kunsthall to create paintings that covered all the walls in the exhibition rooms, after which other works were displayed. Graphic works related to the journey were shown in the exhibition SEA SALT at Norske Grafikere in 2017, which was an exhibition with several thousand prints of various wave forms on matte paper. The work from Regina Rex has later been shown in the exhibition Down North: North Atlantic Triennial shown at the Portland Museum of Art, Reykjavik Art Museum and Bildmuseet in Umeå. In connection with the exhibition Bridges, Arches and Pathways in 2019, he built a 1:1 model of the exhibition rooms at Kunstnerforbundet in the garden on the farm where he lives. Each wall was a large blind frame covered with canvas and was shown as a total installation in the exhibition rooms. Later that year, he showed the continuous painting installation Hole in the Woods in three rooms at Galleri. LNM in Oslo. In 2021, he showed the exhibition Living with it! at Kristiansand Kunsthall. This was a larger installation with paintings, prints and textile works. The exhibition was based on what happens when nature takes over the home. Corals, Sponges and Evil Seaweed at Hå gamle prestel and Cerca Grande at Glasslåven art center in Granavollen are two other extensive installations that enter into dialogue with the architecture of the exhibition space. Last year, Andreas Siqueland showed the exhibition The Forbidden Forest at Stavanger Kunstmuseum. The exhibition is based on Halvdan Hafsten’s collection and challenges the museum perspective on displaying the museum’s collection.
Related projects
