Curatorial statement by Koffi & Højgaard
In 1903, the American game designer, feminist, and author Elizabeth J. Magie developed what she named as The Landlord’s Game. The board game was designed to highlight the economic disadvantages of monopoly – the consequences of a society where only a few people owned everything. She created two sets of rules for the game: an anti-monopolist set, which gave all players a small income when one of them bought a property. This version of the game was considered won when the player who started with the least had doubled their wealth. The other set of rules, the monopolist set, reversed this logic; here, players would collect rent from anyone landing on their property, to in turn use these profits to increase their wealth. Within this logic, the rich would get richer, and concentrate the power, whilst those lagging gradually would disappear from the board, one by one. When toy and game manufacturer Parker Brothers bought Magie’s rights to The Landlord’s Game in the 1930s, they chose to remove the anti-monopolist set altogether, and thus they launched the game under the name Monopoly.
Looking at the conditions of the global economy today, one can observe a logic and growth philosophy reminiscent of monopoly rules; despite doubling its value on an average rate of every 20 years, the inequality between the richest ten percent and the global population at large has been exponentially increasing since the 1980s. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Simultaneously, the earth’s resources are being extracted at an extreme rapidity, to be transformed into goods with close to no lifespan. The illusion of infinite growth disrupts the life cycles of the planet, creates ever greater climate change and leads to major loss of wildlife. As the consequences of human overconsumption are making themselves increasingly visible, this capitalist fantasy is about to crack. We know this cannot go on, but what are our alternatives?
The group exhibition Motvek(s)t [Degrowth / Counter-balance] opposes the fairy tale of eternal growth. Presenting works by Ida Immonen (FI/NO), Istvan Virag (HU/NO), Madeleine Andersson (SE/DK) and Marie Thams (DK), it critically approaches the growth paradigm of capitalism and work life at present. Through their different practices, the artists propose other ways of understanding value, work, time and community, asking us to reimagine the rules of the game.
The exhibition title Motvek(s)t can be read as both “motvekst” [degrowth] and “counter-balance” [motvekt]. It is inspired by the Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito, who in his books Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism (2023), Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto (2024) og Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth (2025), purposes a degrowth communism. Degrowth communism promotes a social model where quality of life, ecological balance and social equality are prioritized over the cost of profit. With this backdrop, the exhibition examines how degrowth communism also can be applied as guidelines for the arts. This approach demands a reconsideration by the artists and curators of the conducts and principles implemented in the art field as is. With what right can we be critical towards the practice of other industries, when our very own – the art world – fails in its efforts to be better?
Consequently, we have during the development and production of Motvek(s)t, tried to stay aware of pace, work rhythms and the limitations of the body. This at large inspired by the coined practice of embodied curating, which puts the body, sensory experience and situated knowledge at center stage. The everyday life in the art field, is for most characterized by limited resources, competition for funds and a widespread tendency to culminate overtime and burn out. We do not claim to have found a set solution; however, we have consciously made the exhibition a testing ground for novel practice, emphasizing to create space for reflection, dialogue and experimentation. The curators and artists meet in a common precariousness. Taking this into account entails practicing consideration and compassion, accepting that not everything is perfect, respecting and accepting our own and each other’s short comings.
Room 1
In the first room on the right, the audience is met by text and three works by Ida Immonen. In the textile work Hyl (2025–2026), an intense red runs through the material. The color is made from birch bark, mushrooms, and forest plants. For Immonen, the color red symbolizes attention and blood, expressing what she describes as a cry from the forest in the face of human predation. The two works Ild and Blikkstille (2020–2026) are further developments of some of the artist’s earliest plant-dyed rugs. Six years after their making, the artist has returned to add new layers of color and meaning. The additions derive from Immonen’s own experience of the gradual disappearing of surrounding forest caused by development and industrialized forestry.
Working with plant dyes, natural materials, Immonen’s textile works can be understood as investigations of the relationship between humans, nature, and traditional knowledge systems related to landscape and plants. She dyes all the yarn she uses herself, often applying medicinal plants with historically associated to women’s health and plants with mythological connotations. Through this slow, craft-based process, Immonen has developed a close relationship with the plants and ecosystems she works with; she considers them living and equal actors in her artistic practice. Questions about what and how much one can extract from nature are central to her work.
In Motvek(s)t, Immonen’s practice connects to the exhibition’s investigation of alternative understandings of work, resources and value. Through plant dyeing, hand weaving and slowness, she challenges a production logic characterized by efficiency and overconsumption, pointing towards a more caring and mutual relationship between humans and nature. The forest becomes increasingly important in her artistry: The exhibited works stem the plants, mythology and their ecological interconnections.
Room 2
The forest remains central in the exhibition’s innermost space. Here, Istvan Virag shows the film Image may contain: hill station, sky and outdoor (2021–26). Over a longer period, Virag has gone to Telemark to investigate the relationship between nature and infrastructure through the lens of his camera. With this fieldwork, he has documented historical industrial sites, some of which remain in operation. In parallel, he has filmed the development of new infrastructure, what have become locally manifestations of the ongoing development of the global data industry. The film displays the complex ecosystems at play in the forest – trees, fungi, soil and water. At the same time, it portrays the human intervention in these landscapes, revealing how large technology companies affect our lives in ever more abstract ways.
In our data-driven society, enormous amounts of information are extracted, processed and traded. This is done to predict and influence the behavioral patterns of billions of people, train machine learning algorithms and foster new forms of artificial intelligence. Personal data, that previously was considered somewhat private and volatile, has been transformed into commodities that form the basis of a new global and completely unregulated economy. Informed by concepts of surveillance capitalism and data colonialism, Virag critically observe these developments. Particularly, how this in turn has led to the concentration of power and influence amongst small elite of technology companies.
Virag, who aside his artistic work, has a background in economy, applies both disciplines to explore the connections between global industrial development, energy and resource consumption, socio-economic tendencies and possible post-capitalist scenarios. In his fieldwork, reality is a raw material to be collected through recordings and photographs, to later be activated through combinations and frictions with fictional motifs. The work in the exhibition, places consumers, network infrastructure, data and research centers side by side with the underground fungal systems, energy and water in the forest. With this gesture, the resources become silent protagonists. The juxtaposing of narratives visualizes how today’s technological and economic systems depend on continuous extraction and growth, while inviting audiences to observe these structures from a perspective where the consequences of our current overconsumption cannot be ignored.
Room 3
At the heart of the largest exhibition room, audiences are met by the work ORGANS WE CAN LIVE WITHOUT (2026) by Madeleine Andersson. As suggested by its title, the work shows bodily organs that are not entirely essential to human survival. In the work, the body appears as a system of replaceable parts; as something that can be reduced, optimized and adapted. Perhaps it is an image of a future in which humans have learned to live with less. Perhaps it is something else. What happens when downsizing is not a choice, but a mere necessity? What happens when the body itself is consumed by the extraction and circulation of the economy? The question shifts from what to whom we can do without.
Andersson works at the intersection of art, theory and speculative science. On two separate occasions during the exhibition period, she will perform her performance lecture Petrosexuality – a lecture on power, sex and fossil fuels(2022). In her practice, she examines how notions of knowledge, progress and objectivity shape understandings of nature, technology and ourselves. Through what she defines as degenerative knowledge production, Andersson suggests fallible and sometimes inconsistent models of thought that nevertheless hold the ability to create new connections and questions. Scientific methods, bodily experiences, humor and absurd ideas are allowed to exist side by side, forming the basis for her performative lectures in which she examines how fossil fuels, desire and power structures can be understood as parts of the same system. With the concept of petrosexuality, she ties energy, industry and sexuality together in a speculative theory of how fossil capitalism shapes language, culture and notions of reproduction and desire.
Andersson’s practice moves between academic analysis, essayistic reflection and performative narrative, creating a space where text, thought and bodily experience merge. Thus, she invites the audience to partake in an experiment: What understandings of the world become available if we allow ourselves to think incorrectly?
In the same room, audiences encounter Marie Thams’ film and performance work, aaaarena, which fills the space with a multivocal sound. Addressing both the audience and participates in the chorus of voices, the work intertwines voice composition, lyrical text and performance in its examination of the body as an arena and a tool in a work life characterized by acceleration and growth.
Working across film, sound, sculpture, text and performance, Thams examines how work, voice and body are shaped within late capitalist society. She is particularly concerned with how the language, pace and expectations of work come to leave bodily traces. Thams questions how the value of human activity is measured and regulated in a system where growth and productivity demands are allowed to dominate. In Motvek(s)t, Thams’ poetic analysis directs a critical eye towards the central role of economic growth in our lives. She creates a sensitive and thoughtful space, which invites the audience to resist the economic ability to permeate everything and return to being creative subjects.
During the opening, Thams will perform the performance Touched (When Coming Into Being), where vocal composition, movement and text explore touch, connection and experiences across generations in a world marked by uncertainty and change. The performance connects personal experiences with broader social and political conditions, and asks how care, distance and contact are negotiated today, across generations, institutions and bodies. Through its form, the work also examines the choir as a social formation and performative structure, where Thams seeks to expand the understanding of the collective voice and body. The performance is supported by the Oslo-based choir Diandre.
Public Program
With the support of the Fritt Ord Foundation, the exhibition unfolds through a series of events and artistic interventions that expand our understanding of degrowth:
Chorus performance by Marie Thams: Touched (When Coming Into Being)
Wednesday, May 13, 17:30 – 18:00
Language: English
During the opening, Marie Thams will perform her performance Touched (When Coming Into Being) together with the Oslo-based choir Diandre. The performance applies voice composition, movement and text to examine touch, connection and generational experience in a world marked by uncertainty and change.
Performance lecture by Madeleine Andersson: Petrosexuality – A lecture about power, sex and fossil fuels
Wednesday, May 13, 19:00 – 19:55
Language: English
In her performance lecture, artist Madeleine Andersson explores the concept of petrosexuality to describe how desire, lust and power are interwoven in the history of fossil fuels. Here, she examines how the catastrophic consequences of global energy systems are not only driven by economic needs but also must be understood through desire and power logics that feed a voracious urge to penetrate, extract and burn.
Conversation about degrowth with artists Ida Immonen and Istvan Virag, degrowth researcher Sara Al Mhadi and curators Koffi & Højgaard
Thursday, May 14, 14:00 – 15:00 at BO
Language: English
As part of the exhibition program, we invite you to a conversation about degrowth and alternative futures. Participants are artists Ida Immonen and Istvan Virág, degrowth researcher and activist Sara Al Mhadi and the curator of the exhibition Koffi & Højgaard. The conversation will open for reflection on how we can live, work and organize everyday life differently, and what degrowth can mean in practice.
Performance lecture by Madeleine Andersson: Petrosexuality – A lecture about power, sex and fossil fuels
Saturday, May 30, 14:00 – 14:55
Language: English
In her performance lecture, artist Madeleine Andersson takes departs from the concept of petrosexuality to describe how desire, lust and power are interwoven in the history of fossil fuels. Here, she examines how the catastrophic consequences of global energy systems are not only driven by economic needs but also must be understood through desire and power logics that feed a voracious urge to penetrate, extract and burn.
Workshop with Good Praxis, conducted by Lars Holdhus: Resistance for Artists
Thursday, June 11, 12:30 – 15:30
Language: Norwegian / English
The working conditions for Norwegian artists today are, historically and globally, extraordinary. There is an access to extensive public funding, work grants and an art market. There is an institutional infrastructure, and a degree of material security that unimaginable to most artists globally. This workshop departs from the assumption that this will not last.
Right-wing governments in Europe have already made extensive cuts in cultural budgets, restructured grant systems and directed public funds in instrumental or nationalistic directions. Various crises will shape national budgets in ways that cannot fully be foreseen, however one can assume that these changes will not be in the favor of the arts nor the artist. The question is not whether the system will change, but how prepared artists are when it does.
When state and institutional support shrinks, the market supposedly fills the void. However, making art is often depended on a stability that markets will never provide. What can be sold, scaled, branded or linked to capital becomes economically victorious, for those whose practice cannot be directly translated according to these principles, the result is often a precarious situation.
Artists in countries without much public funding have been working under these conditions for a long time. The workshop draws on the experience of artists working in places where extensive public funding has never existed, or already disappeared. Collectively run printing houses, occupied production spaces, food growing communities, mutual aid funds, fossil-free production methods, parallel educational structures. It is practical infrastructure, often built by people who had no other choice. Collectively run spaces, mutual aid networks, occupied houses, low-threshold production sites, food growing communities, alternative economies and rebellions.
This workshop is an attempt to start building that capacity in Norway now, while there is still time and resources to do so. The goal is to move from theory to practice. Together we can identify the parallel structures and collaborations that can carry artistic work forward through a future survival, beyond the current support system.
The workshop takes as its starting point the practical contradictions of working as an artist in an art world governed by market forces, and asks what a response to those contradictions actually looks like in practice. The workshop builds on Dean Spade’s framework on mutual aid, adapted to the Norwegian context.
Acknowledgements
The exhibition has been realized with generous support from the Arts Council of Norway and the Municipality of Oslo. The extended public program is supported by the Fritt Ord foundation. The Danish Arts Foundation has supported Marie Thams’ production of works.
Furthermore, the exhibition curators, Pauline Koffi Vandet and Ida Højgaard Thjømøe, would like to thank: BO’s director Una Mathiesen Gjerde, BO’s gallery coordinator Mathea Milkovic Saric and BO’s artistic council for their support of, and trust in, the exhibition. Sara Al-Mhadi for making the trip to Oslo to talk to us about degrowth. Richard Andersson for good AV help and Karl Eivind Jørgensen for being a good exhibition technician and friend.
Bios
Ida Suvituuli Immonen (b. 1992, Finland) is a textile artist who lives and works in Oslo. The basis for her work is the Finnish ryijy rug, a traditional Nordic hand-knotting technique. Applying plants to dye wool, linen and silk, as well as recycled fiber and plastic, she addresses themes such as feminism, climate change and overconsumption, as well as interpersonal emotions. Flat weaving is her most important tool, and she works intuitively without sketches. The visual is often an abstract interpretation of emotions and thoughts that arise during the weaving process.
Immonen has a master’s degree in medium and material-based art from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She has exhibited at, among others, the Norwegian National Museum, Galleri F 15, Galleri RAM, Interkulturelt Museum and Glasslåven kunstsenter. Her works have been purchased by the Norwegian National Museum and KODE in Bergen, and she has received grants from, among others, the Norwegian Directorate of Culture, the Norwegian Visual Artists Fund (BKV) and the Municipality of Oslo.
Istvan Virag (b. 1982, Hungary) is an artist based in Oslo. He holds a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, an MSc in Economics from the University of Pécs in Hungary and has studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Central to his artistic work is a desire to explore and challenge the socio-economic paradigms that govern the world. He works interdisciplinary and enjoys addressing the social and economic aspects of globalization, technological development and mobility – and their impact on human life and our society.
Virag’s work has been exhibited at, among others, Høstutstillingen, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Podium, Oslo, Studio 17, Stavanger, Greenlightdistrict 2021, Skien, New Visions – Henie Onstads triennale for photography and new media, Oslo, Coast Contemporary, Lofoten, Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE, Ålesund, Fotogalleri Vasli Souza, MUNCH Triennale, and most recently at the Riga Photography Biennial. Virag is a member of the artist collective INFOPSIN.
Madeleine Andersson (b. 1993, Jönköping) lives and works in Copenhagen. Her research-based practice proposes alternative historicizations and speculative structures to reveal and disrupt the psychosocial dimensions of knowledge production. She works interdisciplinary across video, sculpture and performance, combining academic theory, scientific instruments, pseudoscientific sense of suspense, social media and horror films in playful installations. This playful mash-up allows her to examine the intersection between science and pop culture; how both fields engage in self-experimentation and the search for inner truth, and struggle with perversion.
Andersson has previously exhibited at venues such as Klaipėda Biennial (2025), Kunsthall Trondheim (2025), Index – Stiftelsen for samtidskonst, Stockholm (2025), Documenta Institute, Kassel (2024), O–Overgaden, Copenhagen (2024), Färgfabriken, Stockholm (2023) and Galerie 35m2, Prague (2023).
Marie Thams (b. 1982, Denmark) is a visual artist based in Copenhagen. She works interdisciplinary with installation, sound, film, sculpture, text and performance, and is particularly interested in how voice, language and body are shaped through societal norms and expectations. Her work examines themes such as work, productivity, gender equality and rhetoric, and how these structures characterize both language and body. A central feature is the use of her own voice and linguistics, as well as a willingness to illuminate and transform established patterns – visually and textually.
Thams is educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and Goldsmiths, University of London. She has exhibited at ARKEN Museum for Samtidskunst, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning and Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, as well as internationally in London, Budapest and Barcelona, among others. Her work is represented in the collections of the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) and Aalborg Kommunes Kunstfond. She is also active as a writer and teacher and has been the chair of the Association of Visual Artists (BKF) in Denmark since 2022.
Koffi & Højgaard is a curatorial duo comprised of Pauline Koffi Vandet (b. 1994, DK/CI) and Ida Højgaard Thjømøe (b. 1991, DK/NO), established in 2023 with the aim of developing experimental curatorial methods to create space for vulnerable, conflicting and socially engaged conversations. Their work is characterized by exhibition formats and larger public art projects, where place, social engagement and community participation are key. Koffi & Højgaard have curated exhibitions in Politikens Forhal (2025), Copenhagen University Library Fiolstrædet (2025), ODP3 (2025), Oslo Kunstforening (2024) and Nikolaj Kunsthal (2024). In parallel, they work as art consultants for Stavanger Municipality’s public art program The Places We Meet – Art in Public Spaces (2025–2027), and as project managers for the monument I Am Queen Mary by Jeannette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle (2023–).