Oslo Apiary & Aviary and Nataliia Korotkova at Spriten Kunsthall

 

ANTI-FREEZE is a pre-showing of Oslo Apiary & Aviary's ongoing work with the plastic-eating nightbutterfly larva. In addition there will be an artist talk with Marius Presterud (Oslo Apiary & Aviary) and Nataliia Korotkova (IIA KO) concerning the city and man's plasticity. The event is hosted by Spriten Kunsthall.

 

From an abandoned ventilation room on roof of Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo Apiary & Aviary has immersed themselves in relationships with the things that live on-, in- and around the building.

 

The last two seasons the practice has mainly focused on the plastic eating night butterfly larvae (the lesser wax moth) - a parasite species that came with the rooftop beekeeping at Kunstnernes Hus. NIGHT BUTTER, is a suggested sculpture and functioning incubator for these larvae. 

 

Oslo Apiary & Aviary have been exchanging ideas with artist NataliIa Korotkova. Nataliia Korotkova's textile sculptures take their cue from the city's form language. Her plastic and textile clothing presents themselves as environments on par with the city architecture, in mutual dependency with its inhabiters.

 

Spriten Kunstthall's project room is a former distilling facility, dating back to 1917, when there was a liqueur factory at Klosterøya. The characteristic building is a survivor of the industrial revolution, a period suggested to initiate what is frequently being referred to as the anthropocene. One of the characteristic features of this age is the amount of garbage and plastic in our surroundings. 

 

NIGHT BUTTER borrows the form language from the sculpture 'Oslo's Geographical Center' (Jon Gundersen, 2014), replacing the silhouette of Oslo with a human. In the middle of the sculpture sits an incubator for night butterflies (the lesser wax moth). These larvae can consume Polyethylene, one of the worlds most common plastics, with the result that it's body to produces a spirit (anti-freeze). 

 

The anti-freeze lets the larvae survive the harsh winters of the North. The sculpture and the larvae invites the audience to consider untypical non- anthropological considerations - that perhaps humans continued existence will depend on other creatures adaptations to us, rather than of visa versa. The

common denominator, 'anti-freeze', invites us to de-crystalize (defrost) our ideas about ourselves, our position in the world and our relation to other creatures.

 

ANTI-FREEZE is organized by Marius Presterud in collaboration with Spriten Kunsthall and with the support of Norske Billedkunstnere.