Bergen Cathedral School

The idea of neighbouring ripples throughout across, with, nearby, as artistic and educational environments flow into one another. In this flow, we can imagine other ways of sharing space and knowledge, allowing room to nurture critical and caring practices of being, knowing, and learning together. It is in this spirit that Tenthaus mobile studio hosts the Communist Museum of Palestine, nearby the Bergen Katedralskole.

Bergen Katedralskole, known locally as ‘Katten’ (the cat), is one of the city’s oldest institutions. Originally a medieval clerical school, Katten has a long history of shifting educational purposes. Today it serves more than 1300 students, offering science, humanities, and International Baccalaureate programmes, alongside dedicated courses for non-Norwegian language students.

Installed on Katten’s premises is Tenthaus’s P1 – Mobile Studio, a longstanding project by the Oslo-based art collective that functions as both an artist residency and a temporary site for learning, meeting, and producing. Building on Tenthaus’s origins as an artists-in-schools project, P1 is designed to fold artistic practice into everyday educational contexts, fostering dialogue within proximity. Embedded in local contexts wherever it goes, P1 invites nearby artists, students, and visitors to meet in a space where structure and a tendency for change are not mutually exclusive — foregrounding art’s ability to connect, include, and share.

During across, with, nearby, in a series of interconnected projects, P1 hosts happenings connected to the Communist Museum of Palestine, a decolonised and decentralised archive for vulnerable objects, practices, and their attendant histories, safeguarded by communities of caregivers. A public node of this ‘museum in de/construction’ eventuates in Bergen through gatherings and shared inquiries, as well as the dispersed and collective museum showcasing of gifted artworks hosted by residents and community organisations in the city.

The museum invites us to rethink art and its infrastructures of support through study of the common and everyday practices of radical interdependency — reclaiming and reimagining culture and knowledge practices with communities who refuse and resist ongoing forms of colonial, imperial, and racial violence.