The Guest Studio at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratoriet is a resource that is offered to professional artists who might profit from a sustained period of work at Vestfossen. The studio is part of Arena Vestfossen, a studio collective that is housed in the same building as VKL. One of the purposes of the Guest Studio is to contribute to an exchange of artistic ideas among both Norwegian and foreign artists. Marit Silsand was guest artist at the studio in May 2016.

Marit Silsand was born in Tjøme in 1980, and lives and works today in Oslo. She works in photography and installation. Silsand is a member of Bjørka, a workshop for camera-based art in Oslo. She has studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, San Francisco Art Institute, and Fatamorgana (Denmark’s academy of photographic art). Silsandis best known for her photographic portraits, works in which she reflects on identity, nationality, ethnicity, and role play.

 

 

Photo: Marit Silsand

 

 

YOUTH

by Marit Silsand

 

During my residency at the Guest Studio of Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium in the spring of 2016, I began on my “Youth” project. In the project I wished to focus on both the photographic portrait and the culture of self-exposure among adolscent. I continued editing the pictures and recordings in the studio. Testing different types of paper and textiles when printing, acrylic- and oil paint on photographs,  image projections and painting on glass, were some of the techniques I explored.

 

Towards the end of the residency I arranged “Open Studio” for two days where I showed the finished pictures, but also my sketches. Some of the photographs I took during my stay at Vestfossen were exhibited in Venice, at “Fragmented Identities”, the second appointment of BORDERS, International Art and Architecture Festival, in the fall of 2016.

 

 

Photo: Marit Silsand

 

Photo: Marit Silsand

 

Photo: Marit Silsand

 

Photo: Marit Silsand

 

Photo: Marit Silsand