Study about what is missing, 2008

Performance: Luis Guerra

Photography: Olaf Knarvik

Camera: Heidi Nikolaisen

FLAGGFABRIKKEN

http://flaggfabrikken.net/

Study about what is missing was a performance developed after 3 months in residency at Flaggfabrikken Center of Photography and Contemporary Art. During that period of time, I started to collect objects from the streets in a kind of situationist condition, with the aim of building a precarious anarchitecture of memory. The objects that I found in the streets in a daily walking base perfomance, by an open and disaffected way, were finally transformed in a long cord. This cord was,  in deed, the main object, a tool for measuring my memory of the city. 

The cord, which was built by a series of objects like pieces of silver paper, paper, caps, wire, plastic bags, etc., would be used for measuring my own allegorical memory of my time in Bergen. I decided that the size of the cord would be the same peripherical size of the entire building where Stiftelsen 3,14 Galleri was. It is necessary to say that the Gallery was placed in a building which, before becoming a cultural space, was used as a Bank. A Bank transformed into a place for Social Capital.

The cord no longer exists. I tried to travel with it, but when I tried to enter in USA with it, the police kept it. My magic anarchitectural-object was lost forever. The object of the Study about what is missing was lost.
The day when the Study, the cord, was unfolded at the Gallery space, I performed an action singing 4 songs of Victor Jara, Chilean folk singer who was killed by the dictatorship in 1973. Through this action I was showing that our past remains within us, as a measure of our history. Our memory, the songs that I kept from my childhood, is preserved as a necessary measure for keeping the narration of the truth. That day I unfolded the cord, and I sang 4 songs that I remembered (4 songs that I still keep within me), to show that our past lives within our presence in presentation. Memory is a fragile architecture built by our own actions.

FLAGGFABRIKKEN – CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND CONTEMPORARY ART is a non-profit organization run by artists in Bergen, Norway.

Flaggfabrikken was initiated in 2003 by ten former students from Department of Photography at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts, who decided to pursue their careers as artists in Bergen. They came across an old flag factory in Møllendalsveien, which they renovated with the ambition to create individual working spaces and to set up a local base of competence for contemporary art and photography. Since then Flaggfabrikken has housed several Bergen based artists and international guests.

Flaggfabrikken has also generated several external projects such asFlaggfabrikken Presenterer, which was established in 2005 as a public one-night event for contemporary art projects that embraced a wide range of presentations such as video screenings, performances, site specific art works, art talk shows, debates, concerts, street art, slide shows, lectures and self presentations. This took place in a downtown cultural venue called Landmark within Bergen Kunsthall. The event-series is now under evaluation and will hopefully get back on track during the next year!

In 2006 an International Artist in Residence Program was carried out with kind support from the municipality of Bergen. This program has brought several international guest artists to live and work in Bergen for periods of one to three months. Today this program is under reconstruction and will be released by the autumn of 2012!

Flaggfabrikken’s total premise consists of eight to ten permanent working spaces, one guest studio and a digital workshop for advanced printing and scanning. During 2012 we’ve got three new members, eleven in total, and the workshop is developing to become a professional alternative for external artists and photographers in Bergen.

Apart from being professional artists, Flaggfabrikken´s members are also active as curators, tutors, photographers and writers.