News
Common Lands – Allmannaretten
30 April
Speculation
Bik Van der Pol
Location: on the bridge from Oslo Central Station to the Opera house.
When: Opening at April 30th at 17hrs,
Duration: Speculation will be on view from April 30th – May 12th
Contact: info@commonlands.net
We should have asylum seekers; poor people should have flats in the area. This is reclaimed land, where the gypsies, the sailors, the addicts, the whores, the truck-drivers have been. All operate on the outskirts of society. The Opera is taking back this area and is giving it to the bourgeoisie.
We can imagine the uproar. How can we destroy the purity of planning? Can we conceive of another kind of future? Other perspectives? (from the script for ‘Speculation’)
In November 2009, Bik Van der Pol gathered a group of people in Oslo to speculate with them on the future of Bjørvika. On the Common Lands web-site a blog is available to make the speculation open for influences and rewritings before and after the results of this session will be presented in downtown Oslo.
‘Can we think of a reflection of the future? What might be the reflection on cultural, artistic events when Bjørvika will be an active cultural area, the ‘place to be’? The opera will function as opera, but performances are mainly are taking place in the open air, on the big public square, the roof of the building. The Munch museum will have sold all its famous paintings to generate finances to invest in the climate. What has the Oslo citizen experienced on the evening of, lets say, June 21, 2021? What play or show has he seen? Will there still be a newspaper where a review will be published? What will be written?’ (excerpt from the invitation to the people that took part in the Speculation session, November 2009)
Common Lands – Allmannaretten is curated by Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere
