FORUM PAUL OTTO BRUNSTAD
LIMITATION AS THE CONDITION FOR CREATIVITY?
Talk by Paul Otto Brunstad on the occasion of the exhibition Palinca Pastorale by Sveinung Rudjord Unneland.
Sveinung Rudjord Unneland has constructed a series of contradictions in the exhibition Palinca Pastorale. Priest, researcher and writer Paul Otto Brunstad will close in on the contradictions in his talk; where he will be asking: Limitations as the condition for creativity?
He writes:
Borders separate and unite, create stops and meeting points at the same time. The border holds a paradoxical simultaneity of relation and separation. The border is where something ends and something else begins.
Limitations are obstacles, but in the obstacle we find the possibility of transgression. Transgressions open the possibility of the expansion of knowledge and understanding, but also of new possibilities in themselves. Yet, transition also holds the possibility of destruction. Thus transgression is ambiguous. Much is at stake, but nothing venture, nothing win. A life without limitations, without strangeness would be a life without new possibilities.
Everything would be the same, and all would be one. Limitation is the birthplace of hope and innovation. Consequently art is also in need of borders. What happens in a culture where borders no longer act as limitations? Where everything is endlessly open at any time, where borders have become so soft that the world is chaotic and without shape? Is this the end of art and creativity, or is the boundless in itself a possibility, a limitation which creates the start of something new?
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Paul Otto Brunstad (b. 1960, dr.theol.) is a priest, researcher and writer. At the moment he is connected to the Air Force Academy in Trondheim, Norway, where he works with ethics and leadership. In addition he has developd a character building programme for officers, based on the classic virtues. He has written extensively, both articles and books, such as Ungdom og livstolkning. En studie av unge menneskers tro og fremtidsforventinger (1998) and Melancholy of Victory (2003). His latest books are KPrudent Leadership between Vices and Virtues (2009) and Enduring Military Boredom: From 1750 to the Present (2009, with Bård Mæland).
In relation to every exhibition Hordaland Art centre hosts a talk, free and open to all audience.