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Intimate Cartography & Mapping

Sissel Aurland, MA Fine Art, 2024, 

link to artist presentation

an articulation about a shared memory between the body, material and landscape

About myself and ´Intimate Cartography and Mapping` :

Born and raised in Harstad, a small city by the seashore above the Arctic Circle in Norway, I feel a deep connection to the living landscape. The sea has been the workplace for my ancestors—fishermen and whalers—for generations, relying on their navigation skills to ensure a safe return home to their families.​ Being privileged to learn the principles of navigation from my father has enabled me to title my Map-works in accordance with the navigation coordinates of the place where they were created, and also a way for me to keep my father's legacy alive. The work has been made in collaboration with nature, capturing the meeting between the topography of my human body and natures ground on paper.

Recognizing that we are part of the matter we explore and the entanglement between humans and non-humans, the way we conceive of our own behavior, ecological relationship and evolutionary dynamics, shapes the kind of future we imagine for our life on this planet.  Finding the world of today in need of collective and unified actions, to respond to climate changes and the increasing polarity in societies, my work offers thoughts towards re-imagining the world in cooperation between humans and non-humans and, calmness as a state of being in the present moment - the only moment that holds the potential for change. 

 Sissel Aurland,  2024

List of artworks:

1 / detail from Topographic Lines II

inc and tracing paper, 2024, size 61x230 cm, photo: Jon Marius NIlsson

2, 5, 6, 8 /  Map N59º08´E10º52´
3 / detail from Map N59º08´E10º52´

Charcoal and paper, 2024, size 58x124 cm, photo: artist

7 / Folded Surfaces
4 / detail from Folded Surfaces

Inc and tracing-paper, 2024, size 30x45x60 cm, Photo: Istvan Virag

9 / detail from Line Drawing used in ´Folded Surfaces´

Inc and tracing-paper, 2024, size 61x195 cm, photo: Jon Marius Nilsson

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