LISTEN! SOLO OSLO: Your Voice

This podcast is for anyone with an interest in art and culture, and particularly for anyone who feels insecure about their own reactions when they encounter contemporary art.

Recording the series SOLO OSLO: Your Voice. Photo: Kilian Munch © Munchmuseet

Do you feel insecure about your own responses when you look at contemporary art? Three representatives from Salam, a non-profit organization that supports LGBTQ+ people from Muslim backgrounds – Dr. Henza Anwar, activist Begard Reza and dancer Hamda Barise – join art mediator Zeenat Amiri to talk about their various relationships with art and the spaces where it’s displayed.

In the podcast SOLO OSLO: Your Voice you’ll hear about various ways of approaching the themes addressed in Sandra Mujinga’s exhibition for SOLO OSLO, which is on display at MUNCH from 22 January to 3 April 2022. Listen whenever and wherever you like, but we recommend that you don’t listen while actually inside the exhibition. Instead, use this time to immerse yourself in your own experiences and impressions and to form your own opinions – trust in your inner voice!

Some episodes are in Norwegian, and some in English.

Prologue

In this podcast, you will hear how SOLO OSLO: Your Voice was created and what you can expect from the rest of the series. You will also hear an introduction to the non-profit organization Salam and learn more about the collaboration between Zeenat and Salam.

Salam’s interpretations

Members of Salam have been to Floor 10 of MUNCH to visit Sandra Mujinga’s solo exhibition. In this podcast they share their experiences and their interpretations of the work on display. Zeenat prepared a series of questions that were designed to encourage the participants to arrive at their own interpretations of the exhibition. But how did they actually experience the exhibition? Hear what they have to say!

Artistic spaces and interpretation

Who are the people whose voices you will hear in these podcasts? Meet Henza, Begard and Hamda from Salam. In this podcast, you will hear about exhibition spaces we’ve experienced and the ones we like best. Where can we experience art? What are our thoughts about the ‘power dynamics’ of exhibition spaces we’ve visited? You will hear a little about our personal relationships with art, the spaces where it’s displayed, and the kind of power shift that can come with a freer interpretation.

Belonging and alienation

Feelings of social alienation come in many forms. In this podcast, we talk about outsiderness, alienation, and what changes we think are necessary to create a sense of belonging – both in art and in society in general. You will hear a little about some of the places where we feel most alienated, and what changes we think are necessary to create a sense of belonging.

SoMe – a type of world building

Social media give us the opportunity to shape and manipulate our digital personalities. These are platforms where we can put ourselves on display, but where we can also camouflage our identities. In this exhibition, Sandra Mujinga takes new technology as her starting point to explore the significance of shadows and fluctuating states of visibility and invisibility. In this podcast, we explain a little about how we use social media. We also consider how social media can give us visibility, while also providing a limited picture of our true selves.

The potential of speculative fiction

Sandra Mujinga is intrigued by science fiction and the limitless opportunities it offers for building new worlds. Stories can be dystopian, they can be apocalyptic, or they can be about alternative history – stories about what might have happened if things had turned out differently. What can we learn from science fiction if we free ourselves from history? We talk about Afrofuturism as well as about our attitudes to sci-fi and the opportunities offered by the genre.

What’s the deal with contemporary art?

Many people experience contemporary art as something that’s inaccessible. This feeling of inaccessibility may be due to the content; the spaces where contemporary art is displayed; or a feeling that there’s a need to behave in accordance with unwritten rules. Is it true that you have to be a connoisseur in order to appreciate contemporary art? What’s your relationship with contemporary art? In this podcast we talk about different approaches to contemporary art and why it may seem ‘difficult’.

Listen on SoundCloud

Read more about Zeenat Amiri's mediation project, which is part of the first edition of the SOLO OSLO-series.