Underskog

Bera Nordal (b. 1954, Reykjavik), curator and director of Nordiska Akvarellmuseet (The Nordic Watercolour Museum) located in Skärhamn on the island of Tjörn, Sweden. She has received a BA in Art History from the University of Lund and a MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and has two years of PhD studies from the same institution. Nordal has previously served as director of the National Gallery of Iceland and Malmö Konsthall.

In 2010, Nordiska Akvarellmuseet was awarded the Museum of the Year by the Swedish ICOM (International Council of Museums) and the Association of Swedish Museums, for its dedication to the water-based art as a medium and its contribution to the community as a bridge between research and education as well as between the world and the local. Some of the museum’s exhibitions include: Alice Neel, Bill Viola, Andreas Eriksson, Louise Bourgeois, Cecilia Edefalk and Hilma af Klint and Art Comics Life.

In the lecture Nordal will discuss the development of Nordiska Akvarellmuseet from its opening in the year 2000. How the museum has drawn the public attention to the range and wealth of high quality watercolour art – both national and international – and at the same time maintaining its powers of attracting large numbers of visitors. She will describe how the museum links international exhibition program and its contemporary collection with research, education and artistic development and also draw attention to the establishment of the museum in the community of Tjörn and the region of Västra Götaland and how it has transformed the locality.

Nordal will also discuss the museum´s future challenges. The relationship between museums and audiences evolves over time and continually change. This is true especially now with the impact of new technology and more demanding public expectations. Knowledge, research and education is crucial in this development. How does The Nordic Watercolour sees itself in that future role?

Program includes: 16/9 Maja Hammarén, 23/9 Sabrina van der Ley, 30/9 Steffen Håndlykken & Stian Eide Kluge, 14/10 Mike Sperlinger, 21/10 TBA , 28/10 Ingrid Hjertaker, 4/11 Adrian Paci, 11/11 Guy Mannes-Abbott, 18/11 TBA, 25/11 Jon Rafman, 2/12 Simon O’ Sullivan

Open Forum is pleased to announce this fall’s program on travel, transportation, and settlement. Turning our heads towards the vast term and ever expanding project of globalization, we are interested in where and how to position ourselves – whether to move or to stay. To which extent do we affirm to or resist against the global flow of imageries and information? How do we deal with the subsequent, or potential, gains and losses of time, space, and identity? And what are some of the habits and wishes developed during and after the move and their influences on our ways of working and living? With the current demographical and geo-political change we see here in the Oslo art scene and in Scandinavia at large in mind, we believe it is a good time to question and discuss what we already know and don’t know about the issues of locality and global connections and art-making and viewing in these contexts.

Please join us at Kunstnernes Hus, Wergelandsvein 17, every Monday at 19.00. The program is free and runs in English.

Open Forum is a student initiative conceived in 1999 and is supported by the Academy of Fine Art, Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

www.aapentforum.khio.no