Forbindelser - tre forlatte husmannsplasser // Connections - three abandoned cotter sites (2018)
Notes on withered and forgotten stories.
Installation for performance. Text printed on paper, objects in porcelain.
In 2016 the work on Connections - three abandoned cotters sites started. They where workers on farms who rented a cottage and some land in exchange for the work on a huge farm. This system was wide spread in Norway until 1855. Today these places are disappearing and the vast history of most descendants in Norway is soon out of sight. Places cotters lived on until 1960-ties was sometimes only a stone hut in the woods, a one room house for 10 people with a small vegetable garden. It was a hard life.
The project was initiated and produced by Toten Art Society and Beate Juell (artist and director). Visual artist Caroline Ho-Bich-Tuyen Dang and composer and musician Kjell Samkopf where participating artists. Over the next two years three separate art projects where created resulting in performance works, artist talks and a published book. Toten Art Society won The Norwegian Association of Art Societies reward for best project in 2018. The project and book also received funding from Fritt Ord, Toten Sparebank, Oppland fylkeskommune a.o.