From the pyramid shaped constructions stretched out into the world, and without claiming a lot of resources from the nature the constructions have been a bare necessity of life for the people on the coast and inland. The coast and parts of the Norwegian is built on dry fish. The wooden racks is not only a memory bank for the people but also the fisheries meaning for the Norwegian society. The ocean has given us the resources the Norwegian nation and the welfare state is built on and that the future generation must harvest from.
SALT have wooden racks that were used for drying fish as its muse. The wooden racks is a sustainable technology and structure that makes it possible to dry fish, do business, build boats and built a society and economy along the coast.
Since we docked in Oslo back in 2017 SALT has become a meeting point between culture and generations. Its also a small cultural village with a breeze of northern Norwegian fishing village mixed with the artistic districts in Berlin.
Our traditional wooden racks lifts up the sustainability interaction with the nature from the past. Through architecture, art and ritual swimming traditions SALT opens up our ancestors sustainable culture heritage for the visitors and our growing generation.
At the same time SALT is, through the cultural program, a bustling meeting point where expressions from the world outside comes sailing from the fjord and blends in with the already existing multiethnic culture in Oslo. This mix has the city’s youthful embrace, and made it to a part of its own everyday life and city culture.
From SALT Sandhornøy 2014
ART PROJECTS AT SALT
MUSIC ON DISPLAY
BENJAMIN MØRK
Benjamin Mørk is a pianist and composer with background from the metal industry. He has created the outdoor-installation Music On Display. The piece was commissioned by Bodø 2024 and will be touring prior to 2024.
The installation is audience-controlled and will light up and begin to play music by Mørk in his Mechanical Piano-style when the public activates it via the glowing button underneath.
Music On Display lets the audience experience music in public spaces and nature without the interference of an artistic ego.
The installation consists of a self-playing piano mounted in an architechtural structure made of steel and glass. It is designed by Mørk and constructed in cooperation with Petersen Blikkenslager, Maritim Sveiseservice, Nordmetall, Tromsdalen Elektro, Lydproduksjon and Thomas Myrvoll.
Music from the project here
Instagram: @Benjaminmork
EARLIER ART PROJECTS AT SALT
SWEAT
MIKKEL AALAND - 20. FEBRUARY - SEPTEMBER 2020
The artist behind the recent art installation at SALT is Mikkel Aaland (f. 1952), a San Fransisco based photographer, film creator and artist. In collaboration with Aaland and SALT we’ve hung up more than a hundred different towels in the Arctic Pyramid.
Sauna enthusiasts from all around the world has contributed with towels, customized with art, words and their amazing sweat to our tribute to the world well-being. Together with towels from countries such as Turkey, Japan, Italy, Australia, Russia and Mexico is also Aaland’s own towels with printed photographs from his world travel on the hunt for the perfect sweat. Each towel represents a moment to when someone left behind the stress of the modern day and prioritized health and well-being. Unlike the modern conception of sweat we have today, it has for traditional societies had magical connotations.
Listen to Mikkel Aalands interview with the Nitimen from the opening 20. february 2020.
«Sweat, because of its association with fire, is connected with the creation of humankind. In Russian and Native American tales "God" is in a sweat bath and creating man through drops of falling sweat. A Bengali tale indicates that sweat carries the seeds of life. Siva washed the sweat away with a piece of cloth. He threw the cloth away. Out of this a girl was born. In Finland the steam is called löyly and believed to have healing capacity; cleansing the body but also purifying the mind (and making you feel at peace with the world).» - Mikkel Aaland
Mikkel Aaland has published over 16 books and exhibited his works on several places around the world. In 1971 when he was only 22 years old, he went on a trip for three years to study different swimming and bathing traditions of the world. This brought him to Russia, Turkey, Japan, Mexico and Finland. The studies led him to publishing the legendary book «Sweat» (1978), which already has become a classic. The book illustrates history and describes the Finnish Sauna, the Russian banya, the Islamic hamman, the Japanese mushi-buro, the Mexican temescal and the sweatlodge from the indigenous in America.
VANNSTAND
MAJA S. K. RATKJE
NOVEMBER 2019 - FEBRUARy 2020
«Vannstand», is a sound work by Maja S. K. Ratkje, inspired by tidal cycles. She used local sea level measurements and made graphic scores, which in turn were musically interpreted by children from coastal towns across the country. Material from the different versions was put together into a new composition and presented in the Arctic Pyramid at SALT through the winter of 2019/2020.
Komafest: New Chapter - Library (2015-2018)
VED Pøbel OG Vardø Restored
SEPTEMBER – november 2018
With materials from the little fisher village Teriberka in Russia a mobile library was built in a Russian military car, a Ural-4320. New Chapter is the story of a local voice with a global perspective about how a local society weakens and surely loses the right and ability to live of their resources.
DARK ECOLOGY
OCTOBER 2018 – JUNE 2019
Sonic Act & Hilde Methi curated between 2014 to 2016 Dark Ecology in the border area between Norway and Russia. The artistic work responded on the relationship between nature and culture. At SALT a tiny version of the project was held under the tilte SALT ART: SELECTED FORM DARK ECOLOGY. The project were completed with workers from BJ Nilsen, Cecilia Jonsson, HC Gilje, Jana Winderen, Justin Bennett, Signe Lidén, Tatjana Gorbachewskaja and Katya Larina.
GLIMT
HC GILJE
JUNE – SEPTEMBER 2015
The artist HC Gilje developed throughout many years the concept «Conversation with Spaces», a poetic dialog between lighting, movements, room and architecture. «Glimt» was a moving light installation in the Arctic Pyramid, dreaming between architecture and landscape with moving lights and shadows.
THE LIGHT THAT I FEEL
YANG FUDONG
AUGUST 2014 - AUGUST 2015
The Chinese modern artist Yang Fudong presented the film installation «The light that I feel» at SALT when the project visited Sandhornøy in the northern land. Where steep mountains and the ocean gap meets Fudong created an unique outdoor film experience in eight different showcase boxes designed for the arctic dark hours.
We are still the same
Kaarina Kaikkonen (Fi)
September 2018 – OCTOBER 2019
"In every shirt there is a story, because someone with a warm heart has worn it." The artist Kaarina Kaikkonen connected 1,200 personal garments, hand in hand, from people in Finland and Oslo to the installation "We are still the same" in the Arctic pyramid at SALT. The work was presented in collaboration with the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute.
BOUNCING NARRATIVES
JUNI 2019
Bouncing Narratives was a performance and art installation where the audience were invited for a playful tangles of pictures, sound and movement. The show created a fine line with pure pleasure and traumatic stories which words can’t describe. The audience were invited to witness dancers movements under a transparent and bouncy trampoline on top of the roof of a container.
NORD POLAR SOUNDTRACKS
FEBRUARY – DECEMBER 2017
The sound works captured the artistic ecology and discovered the nature phenomena, ice, underwater creatures, myths and living memories. The sound works that were presented was Polar Low by Biosphere, Living Land - Below As Above by Margrethe Pettersen and Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone by Jana Winderen.
PUST
EDVINE LARSSEN
JUNE 2015
The installation «Pust» was held at Sandhornøy in 2015. A neon colored stage curtain mounted in the Arctic Pyramid fluttered through weather and wind, and staged the magnificent landscape as a marker for Larssens project «Looking Close. Looking Far». Through natures intervals as well as the so called natural neon color, the installation became a theatrically focus point, visible from the ocean, land and heaven.
RIVERS RUN – NOWNESS
LONNIE HOLLEY
AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2014
The modern artist Lonnie Holley visited SALT in Sandhornøy under the opening weekend and presented small and big projects inside and outside the arena. Through his alternative and obscure relation to the environment we got an insight to an abstract universe from an honest and exciting artist.
