Welcome at the Open Studio of Oktober.

OPEN CALL a work period at art residency KHMessen in Norway. Deadline 30th September.

Kunstnarhuset Messen (KH MESSEN) is a non-profit organization supporting artists from all over the world, founded 10 years ago.

KH Messen is an artist residency with living space and studios for 5 artists and an artist couple (kids are also welcome too) at the same time. Every year 40 artists from all disciplines, come to visit Ålvik and KH Messen to engage with other artists and find concentration and inspiration to work.

In the house there is a graphic printmaking studio. Artist can apply for a minimum of one month up til a three months stay.

KH Messen is supported by Hordaland Fylkeskommune, Kvam herad, Norsk Kulturråd, Sparebanken Vest, Sparebankstiftinga Hardanger and Hardangerrådet.

KH MESSEN is situated in the village of Ålvik in the fjord landscape of Hardanger in Norway.

The town of Ålvik, initially farmland, evolved rapidly from the beginning of the 20th century when a hydropower plant was built to provide power for a factory producing ferro-alloys for the international metal industry. The town was built up around the factory for the workers to live in. All houses and infrastructure built from the drawings of one architect; Nicolai Beer. One of these houses were the large administrative building called Messen. Today owned and run as an artist residency by the artist organization Kunstnarhuset Messen.

Ålvik and Messen is found in the Hardangerfjord. To the north, large lakes on the mountain plateau create waterfalls and rivers running down the steep mountains from 1000 meters above sea level. To the south, the solid boulders continue downwards deep in the fjord to 900 meters below sea level.

It is rare to see the connection between the resources of nature creating the industry that creates a society so clearly as in Ålvik.

Bergen, one of the largest cities in Norway, is situated two hours to the west of Ålvik.

Bergen has several museums, art galleries, art schools and artist residencies. KH Messen is connected to organizations like Gallery KRAFT, Hordaland Kunstsenter (Art Centre) and AiR USF Verftet.

Use our online application form to apply: https://www.khmessen.no/application2020/

Thank you all for a very inspiring Open Studio yesterday evening. It was impressive, delicate, colorful and full of wonderful sounds and film!

An impression of the evening:

Ingrid Simons with her fresh new blue series that she made during the residency at Messen.

Collage with drawing, Lucia Veronesi

Collage wall at the studio of Lucia Veronesi

Collage and painting, work of Lucia Veronesi

Work of Barbara Holler at there studio.

Wall drawing at the studio of Barbara Holler

Kala Pierson made a wonderful sound piece in collaboration with Barbara Holler and she presented a music piece that she has been working on during her stay at KHMessen.

Kala Pierson

Video (presented on a mobile phone) and text made by Iris Blauensteiner during the residency.

video still of the work of Iris Blauensteiner.

We like to invite you to the Open studio on the summer evening of 26th July at KHMessen at 19:00.
An interesting and diverse group of international artists is opening their studio this evening and will show the process and work that they have made during their residency period at KHMessen.
Welcome !

This months artists are:
Monika Auch / the Netherlands
Dabal Kim / South Korea
Dong Hun Sung / South Korea
Adi Hoffman / Israel
Catherine Sheedy / Canada
Ross Donlon / Australia

Impression of the Open Studio of June at KHMessen.

Artists:
Zoie So / Hong Kong / Visual artist
Joanna Rotkin / USA / Dance
Filipa Pontes / Portugal / Drawing
Viscount Kit Kelen / Australia / Writer and visual artist
Carol Archer / Australia / Drawing and painting
Monika Auch / the Netherlands / Visual artist
Ross Donlon / Australia / Poetry
Wim van den Toorn / the Netherlands / painting

Welcome to a new OPEN STUDIO at KHMESSEN !
This will be an exciting evening with readings, studio visits and meeting the artists.

Artists:
Joanna Rotkin (USA) – dance
Zoie So (HK) – visual artist
Kit Kelen (AUS) – writer and painter
Monika Auch(NL) – textile artist
Carol Archer (AUS) – drawings and printmaking
Filipa Pontes (Portugal) – drawings
Ross Donlon (AUS) – writer

”GLASFJORDEN” bokslepp, Messen og Kabuso

How does an artist, who comes from the other side of the world experiences the meeting with Norway and Norwegians?

The Australian poet, artist and literature professor Kit Kelen has travelled many times to the artist residency KHMessen in Ålvik. During his residency months he was inspired to write poems about the landscape, the seasons and people. These poems are now published in Australia. One of the poems “Takk for alt” was awarded by the annual journal “Best Australian Poems”.

The book ”Glasfjorden” is a selection of poems of Kelens “Hardanger poems”, translated in Norwegian by Odveig Klyve. 

Saturday 1. juni kl 16 30 book release in Messen, Ålvik, and
Sunday 2. juni kl 14 30 in Kabuso, where Kit Kelen and Odveig Klyve will read poems of ”Glasfjorden” in Norwegian and English. Those who will visit the book release receive an free version.

Background
Here is a fragment of a Poor Man’s Coat in Australia:

”The poems focus on the poet’s self and its interactions with a very distinctive environment. It’s not just that the emphasis is on sky, clouds, rain, mountain, trees, fjord, what is more important is the way the locations make the interaction (and arrangement) of these elements absolutely specific. The blue sky usually appears between trees and its appearances are determined by the season; similarly, the sun is always seen in different positions dependent on its season”…”Since seasonality becomes more important the closer one gets to the poles it’s no surprise that two of the book’s divisions include poems of summer and poems of autumn. The poems of the former celebrate the dominance of sun and warmth: the fjord (“a little whale’s way”) looks like a glass mirroring the sky, ivy “strikes up / as if just thought of” and the sun is “reluctant to set”.–Australian Poetry review by Martin Duwell 

”Hardanger is a region in Norway. It is a place noted for its beautiful landscape, especially its mountains and fjord, as well as its cultural heritage.  The poems in this collection were drafted there, during two residencies in the town of Ålvik…”

 Now that Poor Man’s Coat has been published, I predict that Ålvik is going to be deluged with applications from poets wanting to go there.  Even if we could tap into just a little of the inspiration Kit found, surely it would be worth it!”   

”Scattered through Poor Man’s Coat, are some striking black and white photographs: tall trees, a human shadow over low stone, shining light on the fjord … One of them is of a gravestone, on which the words translate to “Thanks for everything”.  That could be an apt summary of the overall feeling of this collection. Although there’s room here for sardonic questioning and a curiosity about why so many graves would have that inscription, there is a kind acknowledgement in these poems that life is good, and that it is worthy of a thank you.

That is also what I want to say after reading Poor Man’s Coat. “Takk for alt”, Kit. Thank you for everything. It has been a great joy to read this collection.  There is a whole, charmed world in this book and I cannot recommend it too highly.”

Greetings
Odveig Klyve

Welcome to the Open Studio at KHMessen. We have an interesting international group of artists staying at Messen working with: ceramics, printing, textile, digital media and drawings ! Come and see!

Artists:
Susanna Crum / USA / Visual artist (printing)
Tero Juuti / Finland / Digital media artist
Lindsey Dezman / USA / Ceramics
Rodolfo Salgado / USA / visual artist (printing)
Filipa Pontes / Portugal / Drawing
Sandy Harris / UK / visual artist (textile)

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Wim van den Toorn / NL / Paintings  http://www.wimvandentoorn.com
I’m a painter of Dutch origin who has been living and working in Norway since 2008. Solidly trained as a painter at the Art Academy in Enschede my work has developed in a steady and consequent direction since finishing my Master in 1997. In the course of my career I’ve received a prize for young painters and been granted several scholarships from the Dutch Art Council. This has made possible a continuous focus on the development of my work.

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Melody Loveless / USA / Digital media artist.  http://melody-loveless.squarespace.com
Melody Loveless is a digital media artist, educator, and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work ranges from pieces for electronic and acoustic instruments, live coding performances, wearable game controllers, interactive media, sound installations, and more. Alongside maintaining an active practice as a technology and art educator in the New York City area, she performs often with Codie, a live-coding trio that performs ephemeral works by coding music and visuals live on a stage. She has had performances at Performance Space New York, the New York Hall of Science, and Eyebeam. Past honors include being an Artist in Residence at Gamli Skoli in Iceland. She holds a B.A. in Music from he University of Nevada – Las Vegas, a M.M. in Music Composition from New York University – Steinhardt, and a M.S. in Integrated Digital Media from New York University – Tandon.

Blue (2016) is an interactive installation inspired by the ocean and the works of La Monte Young. This work uses a web camera and a microphone to react to the audience and the space around it.

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Dorian Temming / the Netherlands / visual artist.  http://doriantemming.com
The drawings of Dorian Temming are often idea sketches for images in a room.
The images do not always end up there, the drawings become independent works. Space studies, for the space imagined. It often starts with two or three lines that divide the space. From there she starts sketching. Themes such as daily objects, food, succession and people and nature in its cooperation and opposition inspire her. This produces strange or unusual connections between the objects.

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Paola Ruiz Molto / Spain / Interdisciplinary artist.  https://paolaruizmolto.com/
Running away from panoramic city model, arise the need to build new realities from the perspective of memory and experiences. I am interested in working from projects on a particular subject, research in relation to the archival documentation, the text as an artistic proposal. Projects with a common point, nature and memory, history and tradition, weaving a network of learning and new structures, converge in sculptural installations, often ephemeral pieces, using textile and organic materials of the environment, reinterpreting craft techniques under a contemporary look , establishing a relationship between sound, space + nature, recording the process through drawings, audio tracks, videos – diary and weaving new structures.
Now I give a twist to my artistic work with fresh air, Interpreting the morphology of the landscape in textile sculptures with vegetable fibers.

Project realized during stay in the international residence of artists, Air Van Gogh House. Zundert, Netherlands, 2014. Title: Building my own garden Material: Esparto Hand-knitted.

On saturday 3rd of November the exhibition Hardanger Herbarium opens at Kabuso, museum of modern art in Øystese.
Ingrid Pasmans from the Netherlands will exhibit her works in the foaje of the museum next to the exhibition Harrang/Havaas/Lillefossen.

In Augustus and September 2018 Ingrid Pasmans was working as an artist in residence in KHMessen in Alvik. The nature of Hardanger was a great inspiration to her. Ingrid Pasmans made a “Hardanger Herbarium”; plants, leafs, flowers and seaweed she found in Hardanger dried in an old Norwegian encyclopedia. She used the plants of the Hardanger for the artworks; two 2,5 meters high watercolors of the weeds and an installation of porcelain tiles. The watercolors were also part of the exhibition in Odda in September 2018.

Her work consists of drawings, watercolors and porcelain work, and projects for public spaces.
The experience of nature and history are a great source of inspiration to her. The works exude a certain fragility and the material used is often laborious She works in her own studio, teaches at the Rijksmuseum and the Hermitage Museum Amsterdam and she works on community art projects.

website www.ipasmans.nl