In this lecture, curator Silja Leifsdottir reflects on her curatorial practice through the lens of fermentation. Drawing on microbial cultures as a metaphor for collaboration, transformation, and time, she approaches curating as a practice of cultivation rather than control.
Moving through a selection of exhibitions from her practice, the lecture considers how exhibitions can operate as living systems—spaces where artists, ideas, and publics meet and evolve in relation to one another. Particular attention will be given to the recent group exhibition Iter Subterraneum at Bergen Kunsthall, inspired by Ludvig Holberg’s Niels Klim’s Underground Travels. The exhibition explores subterranean worlds and speculative ecologies, inviting audiences to consider shifting relationships between human and more-than-human forms of life.
Bio
Silja Leifsdottir (b. 1984, Reykjavik/Bodø) is Exhibition Curator at Bergen Kunsthall, where she develops exhibitions and commissions, and collaborates on public programmes. Her curatorial work often engages with speculative fiction, ecology, and more-than-human perspectives.
Previously she worked as curator at the Norwegian Sculptors Society in Oslo (2017–2022). Earlier in her career she worked at Fotogalleriet in Oslo (2011–2017) and was part of the artist-run initiative Holodeck, where she co-initiated Grønland Gallery Weekend in 2013, a project that later developed into Oslo Art Weekend, now organised by Oslo Art Guide, which she co-founded. She studied Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art and Curatorial Practice at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KMD), University of Bergen.