The lecture takes as its starting point my artistic investigations of the ocean since 2020, and in particular my encounter with the work of the marine biologist Michael Sars. Through studying the collections at the Natural History Museum in Bergen, I discovered Sars’ connections to Kinn, the area where I grew up, and his detailed morphological descriptions of marine species became a methodological thread in my own projects.
I would like to reflect upon how this shaped the project Nedsenket natur, where I explored Sars’ methods in parallel with my own fieldwork experiences, and how it later had significance to the development of a video work about the king crab for an exhibition in 2024. The lecture examines how historical natural science, personal geography, and artistic strategies can intersect to generate new narratives about the sea.
Christine Hansen is a Norwegian artist working with ecology, landscape, and memory. She works with photography, cyanotype, video, sound, watercolor, text, and research-based methods. Her projects grow out of fieldwork and archival studies, including underwater investigations, and work with historical scientific descriptions of marine life. Hansen has exhibited widely in Norway and has curated several large exhibitions. Her work is held in collections such as Haugaland Museum, Preus Museum, and the National Museum. She is an Associate Professor at the Art Academy at KMD.