KiT MFA Graduation Exhibition 2016

Trondheim Academy of Fine Art | Master of Fine Arts Exhibition 2016 - Exhibition Opening - 20 May 20 2016, 18:00

Symposium - Transnational Artistic Practices & Local Perspectives - 22 May 2016, 14:00-16:00
Catalogue Release - June 1 2016, 18:30-20:00

Artists:
Ørjan Amundsen | Adi Dukic | Sercan Gundogar | Stian Hatling | Aida Miron | Enrique Roura | Inga Skålnes | Serhed Waledkhani

For more information - http://mfa.kit.ntnu.no

Exhibition Opening Poster - https://www.kit.ntnu.no/sites/www.kit.ntnu.no/files/MFA%20poster%20for%20kit%20announcement.jpg

Foreword:
Welcome to the 2016 Trondheim Academy of Fine Art (KiT), Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Graduate exhibition. In order to fully contemplate the works of these artists, dear reader, you are invited to do a short ‘Apperception Test’ - 1) Please note down the following answers for yourself - What is your place of birth? What place do you call home? If you even have the amenity to be able to refer to a singular place called home, is this the place you currently live? 2) Do any of these add up to a singular answer? 3) Does the act of answering these questions for yourself challenge and distort common presumed perceptions of having a singular place of belonging. If so, then, you are probably in suitable company, and if not, we entice you to find yourself enmeshed in the realm of transnational creative art production.

Art distracts and art is received in distraction, but we must perform ‘new tasks of apperception’ wrote Walter Benjamin (1936-9, p. 269) these undertakings resonate through the artist’s creative processes. It should be noted that the term apperception is used within this discourse to refer to the self-awareness of the perceiving subject, in distinction from the object-orientated process of perception. Meanwhile the convergence of materials and mediums - the training ground of distracted reception has migrated from painting to cinema to television and again to the multitudinous sites and social functions of computational media. The Internet carries in its wake, an ambient Global awareness simultaneously present in our embodied locale. Consequently, the works in the exhibition produce a renewed and new historical interest in refreshing parleys of apperception held up for reappraisal.

Through practice-orientated research the KiT 2016 MFA graduates engage in a manifold of play upon and reflection of our global predicament where displacement threatens our implacement at our every turn. It is not an exaggeration to say that far too easily many of us may even find ourselves in a place we never intended to be. This ineluctable uncanny feeling of not being at home is endemic to the human condition, intrinsic to habitation itself. In this graduation show even the traditional landscape, usually a most accommodating presence, alienates us. The practice’s of these artist’s is without question diverse – but as a whole what unites the group is their ability to transform materials into astonishing and often perplexing works of art, which raise deep-thinking questions about the world and our position within it. Presenting vastly disorientating experiences in various ways, the group stimulates and encourages their audience to adapt themselves to alternate aesthetic forms of self-awareness in order to perceive their artistic intention. However raw and politically orientated these messages may be, when placed in the realm of contemporary art, they have the potential to lead us into the world of magic. The practice becomes akin to alchemy, the ancient mysterious power to transform a utilitarian substance into something of profound significance.

- Dr Nancy Mauro-Flude MFA Course Leader Trondheim Academy of Fine Art