The project is called “Slippery seaweed on wet stone” and will be open until Sunday, May 28. The artist will be present during the opening.

“Slippery seaweed on wet stone” is a project based on eider farming. In the summer of 2021, Øyvind was on an eider island outside of Vega in Norway, after this he has been fascinated by the idea of the eider house. Traditionally in Norway, eider houses have been built from materials that were easily available in the places where the houses were to be built, and they made in the landscape to imitate natural holes and nests. As eider farming has become more industrialised, the houses have become more and more technical construction wise. Øyvind wants to challenge the building techniques and create a «nature house» and is therefore experimenting with materials and form to build a nest in the gallery. He wants to take the audience into a wondering, curious and open universe which he orchestrates via the processing of found material from Ísafjörður.

Øyvind Novak Jenssen (b. 1988 NO) lives and works in Trysil, a small forest municipality in the eastern part of Norway. He is educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (MA 2021) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim (BA 2017). He is also a trained chef, and works with methods and techniques from the culinary field. He works with a playfulness in his approach to art – and sees it as an important means of being able to touch on issues around sustainability, ecosystems autonomy, our relationship with nature and other issues that at first glance may seem relatively gloomy.