For the final commission in Bergen Kunsthall’s 2018 programme of live commissions ‘Who’s doing the washing up?’ and in the context of the winter exhibition ‘On Circulation’, artists Maia Urstad (Bergen, Norway) and Anton Kats (Berlin, Germany) combine their shared practices and interests in forms of communication technology, the ways in which stories are circulated, recorded and archived and how narratives of technological developments routinely overlook how and by whom these tools have been developed.

Interested in the histories of Bergen’s seafarers, transport and communication methods as starting points, Urstad and Kats explore questions such as: How does the technology available to us determine what stories and histories are shared? Who gets to design it and who gets to use it? Whose voices are left in and out?

Following the residency, throughout November 2018 – January 2019, Urstad, in collaboration with Oda Braanaas and Thea Haug, develops a new listening and recording project with a women’s group from Bergen Røde Kors, as part of a new collaboration between Festspillkollektivet and Bergen Kunsthall. Festspillkollektivet is a project within Bergen International Festival. It encourages inclusive, collaborative and creative projects together with social and cultural partners, institutions and communities.

Part of ‘Who’s doing the washing up?’ – a programme of live commissions in 2018 at Bergen Kunsthall exploring feminist organisational practices and modes of communication – and the structures that support these. The title of the series is used to address questions that often go unmentioned when thinking of possible futures: Who has a voice in these futures? Who’s doing the work to sustain them? What types of work are valued? And what happens when imagining new ways of organising begins with these questions?

Photo: Thor Brødreskift