Christina bruland

Konferanse

Linosnitt og gipsskulpturer

—

Christina Bruland’s works take Norwegian sign language as a point of departure, and explore collective communication, the power of the word and alienation due to unavailable information. The word "conference" in Norwegian sign language means directly translated into Norwegian "several people sitting in a circle". The meaning of "conference" in Norwegian is a gathering, a negotiation or a consultation; a meeting to discuss a particular topic of common interest, to exchange ideas or to reach agreement on disputed issues. In these times of several wars that have attracted large parts of the world's attention, the importance of communication also follows. This applies both to information we receive through the media and social platforms, and not least to the communication that is needed to stop conflicts.

The sculptures in the work Conference are produced by speaking Norwegian sign language into buckets of wet clay, thus creating negative molds that are filled with plaster. The spontaneous form of the words is gone, and an unreadable imprint of sentences in sign language remains. This type of "covert communication" refers to the very limited information that reaches the general public during, and after, crucial negotiations.

The hand shapes for the Norwegian signs for "yes" and "no" are the motif of the linocut hanging from the roof of the house. The content of a negotiation boils down to these two words, a "yes" or a "no", and this is what remains in a readable report after the meeting has ended.

By placing plaster sculptures outdoors in the middle of winter, they will probably wither and perhaps disappear completely during the exhibition period. Time is the enemy of memory, and the more time that passes, the more we forget about conversations we've had. What remains at the very end is a memory of a meeting, a "something". After the end of the exhibition period, the sculptures may have shifted to a "something", like a memory of a conversation that took place in the garden at Billedhoggerforeningen.