Hordaland Kunstsenter

In collaboration with Bergen Handicraft Association, the artist has created a performance to be presented during the Amateur Culture Day in the Greig Hall. Approximately 40 women sitting in an orchestra looking formation will knit using knitting needles with microphones attached, creating an experimental sound piece and a feminist act.

Brännström has for the last years concentrated on exploring different forms of hierarchies, and also looked closely at the status given to traditional female chores and handicrafts today. She has often made use of separatist feminist methods in her processes to underline the themes she at any time is exploring. This is also the case with the process of Strikkekonsert (Knitting Concert).

The product is just as important to the traditional handicrafts, as for modern production, but the associations to the process leading up to the result for handicrafts points in other directions than product only. The time it takes, the motivation one needs to reach the goal, desire and memories are strong associations emphasised in this performance.

Halldis Rønning will conduct Strikkekonsert (Knitting Concert) and Ingrid Grønli Åm will be the DJ. Ethnologist Ingrid Birce Müftüoḡlu will attend the performance and write at text based on the experience, later to be published at www.kunstsenter.no

---------

Victoria Brännström holds an MA Fine Art from Konstfack, University College of Art, Craft & Design. She lives and works in Stockholm. Her works are often results of social interactions where the audience or invited groups are integrated in the work. She has amongst other participated at Almalöv Konstbiennal, Östra Ämtevik in 2006, and the same year she organized syjunta Nonstopp during Stockholms kulturfestival. Brännström was a resident with Hordaland Art Centre December 2008-January 2009.

Halldis Rønning is a conductor and a violinist. She was educated at the Grieg Academy, The Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) and The Norwegian Academy of Music. She lives and works in Bergen.

Ingrid Grønli Åm is DJ and MA-student in philosophy at the University of Bergen. She has mediated music at Studentradioen (The Student Radio) and hosted concerts and club nights in Bergen and Trondheim.

Bergen Folk Art and Craft Association was founded in 1974, and is a non-profit organization. Our main objective is to maintain, strengthen and continue the development of this very much alive culture in Norway through organizing activities and measures that generate the public and professional engagement needed in order to strengthen the know-how, production and turnover within our field of traditional folk handicrafts.

Ingrid Birce Müftüoḡlu is currently doing her Ph.D. at Uni Rokkansenteret, University of Bergen on the everyday, aesthetics and politics within the Women’s Movement in Norway in the 1970s.

Strikkekonsert is supported by Arts Council Norway and City of Bergen