What does it mean to nurture gestures of neighbourliness, nearby and from afar? How might love shape the very act of assembly, capable of countering social, ecological, economic, and political injustices? How can we challenge pedagogy that flattens diverse worlds, cultural differences, forms of knowledge, engagement, and ways of being?
This edition of the Bergen Assembly is an invitation to participate alongside others in approaching these questions and to share in processes of learning across, with, and nearby. It is experiential: a communal, living, and evolving process. It weaves together artistic formations and knowledge creations through practices of sharing rather than showing. This assembly is led by the intention to foster collective encounters and responses to the paralysing cruelties and ensuing insecurities of our time. By embracing uncertainty, fragility, and intimacy we seek to forge paths through the abyss into reflective and creative kinds of engagements. Guided by curiosity and a spirit of collaboration, new and abandoned insights alike shape this edition’s experiences.
Carried in such questions and pursuits is the diversity of practices that interlace in this edition of the Bergen Assembly, convened by Ravi Agarwal, Adania Shibli, and the Bergen School of Architecture (BAS). As the assembly’s programme unfolds over and beyond a period of three months, these inquiries bring together artists and practitioners from other disciplines, while also inviting you to join, expand upon, and carry them forward.
Throughout, the convenors have sought forms of continuously ignored knowledge that are in motion and in relation to one another. In their complexity, these forms might recall poetic knowledge that precedes Modern scientific knowledge and ideas that embody knowing by letting ourselves be known. This approach foregrounds a kind of learning that resists categorisation or exclusion, and which is cultivated over time across places, humans, and more-than-humans. It invites each one of us to allow a space for what is there, though unacknowledged, as well as new modes of understanding and ways of being, both in Bergen and beyond.
With: Ken Are Bongo and Joar Nango, Susan Philipsz, Koki Tanaka, Prabhakar Pachpute, and Jana Winderen at Bergen School of Architecture. Vikrant Bhise, Marcus Coates, AgriForum: Acts of Re/Collection (facilitated by FICA, with contributions by Anga Art Collective, Malavika Bhatia, Ankan Dutta, Sanchayan Ghosh, Blaise Joseph, Rashmi Kaleka, Shubham Kumar, Maksud Ali Mondal, Ashis Palei, Bhikari Pradhan, Gopa Roy, Sheshadev Sagria, Niroj Satpathy, Umesh S, and Gyanwant Yadav), Kåre Aleksander Grundvåg, Gram Art Project and Matskogen, Clara Hastrup, Ánddir Ivvár Ivvár / Iver Jåks, Sajan Mani, Gruppe 66, Karen Werner, Singing Wells, and Karan Shrestha, and co-ritus events by Susan Philipsz, Maasai Mbili, Jakkai Siributr, and Tenthaus Art Collective at Bergen Kunsthall. Izz Aljabari, Priya Bains, Olav Bleie, Blocknotes with Christine Otten and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Tora Sanden Døskeland, Leander Djønne, Shahram Khosravi, Lars Korff Lofthus, Layli Long Soldier, Maaza Mengiste, Christine Elsebet Rahlff, Agnes Ravatn, Philip Rizk, Einar Økland, Gunnhild Øyehaug, Elin Már Øyen Vister, and the Hardangerfjord community at The Literature Boat Epos. Nepal Picture Library: Dalit Archive, Feminist Memory Project, PARI Archive (Grindmill Songs Project), and Norwegian Queer Archives at Stranges Stiftelse. INTERPRT and Climate Rights at Bergen Public Library and MLAG. Monica Ursina Jäger at Grand Hotel Terminus, Amundsen Bar. Maasai Mbili Artist Collective at Entrée. Floating University at Kristiansholm. Builders’ Hut and Trajectories at ROMMET, USF. Communist Museum of Palestine (including Bergen Committee for d-0 د٠, Munir Fasheh, Ayreen Anastas, Dahaleez Collective, Mandaloun Experimental Arts Lab, Mezna Qato, Peter Makhlouf, Rana Anani, Rana Batrawi, Rene Gabri, many other friends and friends to come) and Tenthaus Art Collective at P1 Mobile Studio at Bergen Katedralskole "Katten". Lapdiang Artimai Syiem and Monica Ursina Jäger at Nonneseter. Al Borde and Traces at Bergen Assembly Open Office. Jakkai Siributr and Erlend O. Nødtvedt at Textile Industry Museum. Sarah Kazmi at the Fisheries Museum. Hans Petter Blad, Pedro Carmona-Alvarez, Shwan Dler Qaradaki, Ulla Schildt, Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold, and others in Vinduet.