Oslo Open 2025 på Atelier Kunstnerforbundet

Bendik Bendik (b. 1996, Norway, he/him/all) lives and works in Oslo. His practice is performance-based and explorative through mediums of video, photography, and installation. Bendik’s works can be read in a context of trials and challenges within normative perceptions and gender identities. He often explores scenarios in which one is stuck, in the relationship between the body’s unused functions and exposed actions. Ongoing projects are locally anchored with a political, social, and historical engagement, as Bendik raises questions about urban development and prejudice in the perception of a place.

Rafiki’s interdisciplinary artworks find their starting point between photography and bead work, textiles, waste materials, and the use of objects imbued with memorial capacities. With a process-based practice, Rafiki’s artworks are not ‘final’, and hold healing, remembrance, and cultural analysis as central. Artistic strategies in her works often avoid Western, anthropological gazes. Incorporating symbolism, fables, and tools from visual storytelling and oral history in her pictures, she invokes themes such as forced displacement, war, racialized understandings of Blackness and femininity, and burdened colonial traditions to control place and obliterate temporality.

Sarah Kazmi (b. 1990 Pakistan, she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, living and working between Oslo (Norway) and Karachi (Pakistan). Her artistic practice moves across research and visual production, observing the relationship between food, language, and politics; often based around/with communities and local environments. In addition to visual artworks Kazmi works with writing, as her texts are often conveyed through a variety of rhythmic disciplines including sound, video, installation, and performance.

Thora Dolven Balke (b. 1982, Norway, she/her) lives and works in Oslo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Her practice is strongly mediated through photography and moving images, heightened by their sculptural installation, often alongside sound and objects made of materials such as silicone and resin. Dolven Balke’s work is socially engaged and at times collaborative and curatorial. Among other projects, she co-curated the Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) in 2011 and was one of the founders of the artist-run space REKORD (Oslo, 2006-2010). In the past years, she initiated the Agder Art Academy, a collective work of public art produced by KORO (Public Art Norway) in the form of a three-year education programme developed and run by artists for inmates in the maximum-security prison at Agder Prison.

Ayan Abdi (she/her) is a Norwegian-Somali photographer based in Oslo, using photography to explore themes of identity and heritage, and their nuances in everyday life. Her work focuses on the African diaspora, capturing moments that feel both intimate and universal. Ayan is influenced by nostalgia and a multicultural perspective, as she documents people and places with an emphasis on authenticity and human connection. Working mainly with portrait and documentary photography, she is drawn to raw, unfiltered moments that reveal both personal and communal stories. Whether through street interactions or deep collaborations, Ayan’s process builds on engagement, trust, and letting stories naturally unfold in front of the lens. Through her photographs, she aims to preserve personal stories and promote the understanding of culture and belonging.

Jelsen Lee Innocent (b. 1983 US, he/him) is a Haitian-American interdisciplinary artist based in Norway. His research and studio practice examine the lasting impacts of imperialism across social hierarchies, built environments, and consumer culture. Integrating historical records, contemporary media, and material experimentation, his work surfaces narratives that challenge hegemonic structures and open space for alternative imaginaries. Jelsen collaborates with Atelier Kunstnerforbundet on a long-term with the participatory platform for cultural analysis Peer Review. 

Lidiya Solomon (she/her) is an artist of Ethiopian origin currently based in Oslo, Norway. Working primarily with painting and large-scale drawing on recycled and found materials, her practice explores themes of displacement, identity, and the layered expectations placed on those living within the diaspora. By repurposing discarded objects, she challenges conventional notions of value and permanence, giving new life to what is often overlooked. Through symbolic imagery and narrative-driven compositions, her art tells visual stories of disconnection, divine possession, and the ongoing search for wholeness.