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Trasé - art on busses in Bergen, for Hordaland Kunstsenter and Gaia Trafikk AS, Bergen, Norway. March 2004.

The project was financially supported by Bergen Kommune and Gaia Trafikk AS.

Background information:

This project was made during my appointment as "aspirant" for the Norwegian Arts Council at Hordaland Art Centre. My one year long position was divided between my own work and work for the institution, focusing on public art. During 2003 I researched public art in the Bergen region and concluded that the public art was regarded as permanent works of art, and thus would eventually become invisible to the audience, so I wanted to create a temporal space for public art. Since most of the public visual space already is used for commercial purposes I had to enter into a dialogue with a local business and chose the bus company Gaia Trafikk AS. We discussed several options, but landed on the outside space of five busses. I invited artists from all of the country to send in suggestions for projects, but ended up with an overweight of "anti-commercial" projects, which I found was not interesting to my focus. My focus was to find a new space for art, not to oppose the existing public space.

  

Because the company I worked with only opperates in this region I decided to use artworks from Flaggfabrikken - senter for fotografi og billedkunst where I also am a member. This way I did not only curate the project but also acted as an artist. Since this was a research project I would get to see both sides of a project like this, both from the curato's and the artist's point of view.

Due to wear and tear (all the busses are machine washed every day), the works will only exist for a period of two to three years, after which they will be removed. This allowes the company to invite artists to once again fill these spaces with new works

 

 

Works presented as they were paired on the busses:

Red bus:

Heidi Nikolaisen - Vi drar på skitur likevel

   

Kristin Tårnesvik - Say it with flowers (palced on either side of door)

Red bus:

Arne Skaug Olsen

      

Kjersti Solberg Monsen (palced on either side of door)

Red bus:

Hanne Cathrin Olsen - Gold and greenfield

   

Siri Ekker Svendsen - Proteggi mi (palced on either side of door)

Yellow bus:

Olaf Knarvik - horisont

   

Tonje Li (palced on either side of door)

Yellow bus:

Kjetil Kausland

   

Anne Szefer Karlsen - Company Town (palced on either side of door)

From the mounting of Olaf Knarvik's "horisont":

 

From the press conference at Gaia Trafikk AS:

Gaia Trafikk's Trine Sivertsen being interviewed by local television in front of Heidi Nikolaisen's images.

Arne Skaug Olsen                                                    Kjersti Solberg Monsen

Tonje Li                                                                Olaf Knarvik

Heidi Nikolaisen                                                    Kristin Tårnesvik

   

Hanne Cathrin Olsen                                            Siri Ekker Svendsen

 

 From the opening of the project outside Hordaland Art Centre at the bus stop. The busses stopped at this bus stop, turned and stopped on it's way back again. The bus stop was lit up by three powerful lamps for the audience to be able to see the works.