Toril Redalen & Siri Skjerve

Lines Made by Walking

9 March - 30 April 2023

LINES MADE BY WALKING

Richard Long walks for hours back and forth across a field. The line in the grass is the imprint of the soles of his feet as they press against the ground. Rhythm, the landscape and impressions are repeated, but at the same time, the walker discovers new things. The round-trip on the path is a circular movement. The imprint in the grass eventually disappears, but the individual steps are experiences had through the act of walking, turning, walking back and turning again. Moving from one place to another becomes imbedded in the body like a material memory. It engrains itself at the same time as part of it leaks into the next haptic act.
We start to walk due to longing or necessity. We cross boundaries and move in time, geography and experience. We leave. We return. A movement can be the action of an individual but also of a community seeking change.
The exhibition Lines Made by Walking presents works made with clay and animal skin. In a way, these materials represent feet and ground, legs and path. Skin and earth. The human in the landscape. The materials are experienced as stuff in their own right and but also as invisible components of bodies and their environment. A part of us.
 
TORIL REDALEN and SIRI SKJERVE both have a BA in ceramics and an MA (2007) in art from Bergen National Academy of the Arts. With this background, their artistic practices have moved in different directions at the same time as their projects are thematically connected. Through coincidence, they also now share a relation to a geographical location: Todalen, where Redalen grew up and Skjerve currently lives. The two artists have collaborated for several years, not only on shared projects but in their individual practices. Part of this collaboration concerns texts – those they themselves have written, but also texts written by others. They both have a fondness for books – as things leafed through, read, exchanged and collected. Lines Made by Walking is their first joint exhibition.
 
The exhibition is supported by Arts Council Norway, KiN Regional Project Support, and Kunsthåndverkernes Fond.

Translator: Arlyne Moi