Unregulated life has rarely meshed well with city life (Adams and Lindsey 132; Wolch and Emel), even when confronted with unprecedented biodiversity loss (IPBES, 2019; WWF, 2022). This prompts a question: How can we, and more specifically, how can I as an artist, respond to the ecological and social challenges of the present? At what point does an artistic project evolve into something like environmental politics, activism, or ecological design?
12. Juni 2026
10:00 – 11:00 (ZOOM)
Architecture for the more than human Investigating the nature-culture dichotomy through sculptural interventions. Where nature and urban space meet; sculpture as a mediating strategy. This PhD project situates itself at the junction where nature and urban spaces meet. Unregulated life and urban spaces have rarely meshed well. In my practice I have used the notion of sculptural intervention to describe my work. It is an articulation and sharpening of the notion of public art interventions. In the midway evaluation, I will go through several examples of exhibitions, fieldwork and related projects. I will briefly introduce all the relevant results from my research and I will go deeply into the meeting between a critically endangered species, Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) and the town of Tromsø. The kittiwake is a cliff breeding seagull usually associated with windswept bird mountains far from human populations. These birds have begun to nest on building facades in Tromsø. The breeding seagulls are stirring conflict with other inhabitants, with their noise, odor and the “matter out of place” they generate. One possible outcome can be interventions that reframe or dampen the conflict between humans and animals sharing the same urban space. My methods are and will be context based and relies on careful listening, observation and conversation. Getting to know the place, people and other life forms who have and might have a stake in the place, subject or project. I will collect various data, notes, papers, objects, material samples, digital images, digital sketches and spatial data. I want to use computer assisted production tools to prototype and develop possible solutions. One of the reasons I want to use these tools is that they serve as a relational tool for communicating with other fields and disciplines. The digital input to computer assisted tools is sharable and can possibly serve as repeatable experiments. And finally computer assisted production tools make it possible to experiment with living surfaces / bio active material, as outlined by Hilbertz. Hilbertz was an German american, architect, marine biologist and futurist, who was a pioneer in developing tailored, imaginative and affordable solutions based on local ecology and material streams. The data that I collected will be archived and used in conjunction with available research, and input from a host of collaborators, stakeholders and scientists as a foundation to develop a body of work reflecting, investigating and experimenting with the research question.
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Kåre Aleksander Grundvåg was born in 1984 in Tromsø, where he lives and works. Grundvåg is educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tromsø and is currently a candidate in artistic research at UiT/UIB. Through various sculptural techniques and process-based projects, Grundvåg explores a non-human architecture. Material experimentation, bio-mimetics and traditional knowledge are included as elements in the practice, with the coastal landscape in Northern Norway as a frame of reference. His work has been exhibited at: Bergen Assembly (2025) Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (2025) Platform Stockholm (2024) Aldea Bergen (2024), DNB Stipendutstilling, Oslo Kunstforening (2023), I Love Seagulls, Tromsø Kunstforening,Nordover Longyearbyen (2022), Entrée Bergen (2021) Format Oslo (2021), Bergen Kunsthall (2021), Tromsø Kunstforening (2021) Kunsthalle Wien (2021), Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (2021), Kurant Tromsø ( 2020), The Autumn Exhibition Oslo (2019), LIAF Svolvær (2019), Barents Spectacle Kirkenes (2019), Meat the Future A.K.T Pforzheim (2019), and Arctic Arts Festival Harstad (2018)