From the 27th of October to the end of November, NOTCH 09’ will provide a comprehensive program of futuristic audio-visual performances, design and architecture exhibitions from both Nordic countries and China. Between the 12th and the 28th of November there will be an ID- entity exhibition. Here you can find some information about the Norwegian artists who are participating.
Yokoland
Eclectic, conceptual, playful and straight-forward designers and design studio.
Yokoland is a design studio based in Oslo (Norway) founded by Aslak Gurholt Rønsen and Espen Friberg between their graduation from High School (2000) and their graduation from The National Academy of the Arts, Oslo (2005). The studio today consist of designers Thomas Tengesdal Nordby, Martin Lundell and Yorel Cayla, as well as founding member Aslak Gurholt Rønsen. Yokoland also collaborates with other graphic designers,photographers, illustrators,art directors, editors, writers, musicians, architects, industrial designers, programmers and animators.
Yokoland's main focus is design for cultural clients such as publishers, record labels, architectural companies,museums and art galleries. In recent years the studio has done a wide range of projects – from print-based projects like design of books, magazines, posters and record covers to various types of illustration, signage, set design, wall paintings, exhibition design, title sequences, websites, company identities and stationary. From time to time the studio takes part in other design and art related projects, which have resulted in anything from a fake forest installation to the building of a miniature factory.
Yokoland has gained a reputation both nationally and internationally for the studio's eclectic, conceptual, research based, playful and straight forward approach. A monograph about the studio "Yokoland – As we go up we go down", was published by Die Gestalten Verlag in 2006. The studio's work has also been published by publishers such as Phaidon Press, Princeton Architectural Press and Laurence King.
For more information about Yokoland, please click here.
Morten Spaberg
Morten Spaberg is a Norwegian photographer based in Oslo. He works as an art photographer and also as a half-commercial photographer. Spaberg likes to photograph ordinary things with out of the ordinary equipment, such as old 4 x 5 inch cameras. In 2008 he started Aki Books with Aslak G. Rønsen. Aki Books is a small publisher of art and photography books and zines.
For more information about Morten Spaberg, please click here.
So Takahashi
The life in Norway inspired So Takahashi to delve into three dimensional objects and designs. His functional design effectively combines Takahashi`s Japanese heritage of origami with Scandinavian techniques of woodbending.
Oslo-based Takahashi (originally from Yokohama, Japan) works across spatial, print, packaging and product design disciplines, and this year is launching his Origami chair.The basis for Heads Inc/So Takahashi design studio has been to combine commercial work with an on going exploration of design that floats between the different dimensions; 2d, 3d, audio. Whether it is a book cover, a chair, an album or a performance, it is all part of the same exploration and creative process of designing an output – an expression.
For more information about So Takahashi, please click here.
Fantastic Norway
Fantastic Norway is an architectural studio founded in 2004 by Håkon Matre Aasarød and Erlend Blakstad Haffner. Between 2003-2007, they travelled around in Norway in a red caravan, anchoring themselves in towns where change were needed.
The initial ambition was to create an open, including and socially aware architectural practice and to re-establish the architect as an active participant and a constructor of society.
The studio is engaged with architecture and installations as well as mobilization processes, development strategies and lecturing. Clients span from local communities to private investors and public institutions.
They primarily work in the field of culture, tourism and commercial building. In addition to traditional commissions they initiate projects themselves and organize the financial and political anchoring of them.
Fantastic Norway believe places are stitched together by the stories and lives of people living there. Every client is different; every place is in some way peculiar. They aim to embrace this fact and through dialogue transform it into architecture.
Fantastic Norway was proclaimed "Architects of the Year" at the Oscar Hansen Symposium in Bergen/Norway in 2005 and received the "FAD medal of honor" for "best international practice" in Barcelona/Spain in 2007. The office was exhibiting at the international pavilion in Venice at the 2008 architectural biennale. The headquarters is situated in Oslo/Norway.
For more information about Fantastic Norway, please click here
Thomas Kvam
Thomas Kvam (born 1972) graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and has earned an MA in Fine Art degree at Goldsmiths College in 1999. He created his first video-robotic installation in 1996, using a projection of his own face for that of the robot. Since then he has received a lot of international attention for his video installations.Thomas Kvam has also been a Research Fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts since 2006.
For more information about Thomas Kvam, please click here.
Official website: www.notch09.com