Could you start by telling a bit about your practice?

“I’ve worked with a lot of different techniques—sculpture, installation, performance, video. But in general, it has a lot to do with our existence. There are a lot of existential questions in it.”
He pauses, then continues:
“I’m interested in the bizarreness of life—and the mundaneness of life at the same time. The contrast between the things that we do on a daily basis and, you know, the universe.” “There are so many things that are fascinating and bizarre and boring and weird and uncanny.”

You’ve spoken about the tension between the primitive and the rational—does that still drive your work?

“There is something very primitive about us. We’re animals that happen to have a consciousness that makes us question our own existence.”
“At the same time, we try to control that—through ethics, through a moral understanding of things. But there are always these… ugly outbursts, you could say.”
He describes this as a kind of internal conflict:
“I just think it’s interesting how we are trying to control our primitive self.”

There are also clear references to shelters and displacement in the exhibition.

“Yes,” he says. “Seeing what is happening in Gaza, or Ukraine… it’s very painful.”
“You see people being displaced, their homes bombed, and then they have to live in tents—and those get bombed too.”
For Hietbrink, these images reinforce a central tension in the work:
“They’re trying to find safety all the time, but it’s a very fragile place to be. It’s protective and fragile at the same time.”

The works feel very bodily, even visceral—but they’re made from synthetic materials.

“The body is just material, in a sense,” he explains. “But it’s also where everything happens—our thoughts, our feelings, our being.”
And the inside of the body, in particular, fascinates him:
“It’s wet and it’s bloody and it’s slimy… and then we use this to think about philosophical or political questions. That’s kind of bizarre.”
This contrast carries into the materials:
“I want it to look real and juicy and wet—but I also want you to know that it’s not real.”

That creates a kind of uncanny experience.

“Yes, exactly,” he says. “You feel something that is both familiar and totally strange.” “It can be repulsive, or frightening, but also attractive at the same time.”

You’ve also worked with 3D modelling in this exhibition—how does that relate to your process?

“It’s just a tool, like a knife or a brush,” he says.
“When I work on the computer, I can actually go inside the sculpture. I can be a tiny person moving through it.”
“That’s something I hope the audience can also experience—that you can imagine yourself inside these spaces.”

What kind of experience do you want the viewer to have?

“It’s very experiential work,” he says. “People can do whatever they want with it.” “Some people might find it grotesque, some might find it funny, others might find it boring. That’s all fine.”
He’s less interested in controlling interpretation than in working at a threshold: “I like to work on the edge—where it might become too much.”

Too much in what sense?

“You can overdo it,” he says. “Too much emotion, too much tactility, too much effect.” He compares it to music:
“If you add too much reverb, it becomes too much. But if you balance it, it creates something.”
“I’m interested in that edge—where it almost tips over.”

Looking back, does this exhibition feel like a continuation of your earlier work?

“Yes,” he says. “In many ways, I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“I’ve always created spaces—almost like dioramas—where something happens.” He traces this back to childhood experiences:
“I loved the dioramas in natural history museums. Those staged environments—they were very mesmerizing.”

And what feels different now?

“I’m older, more experienced. Maybe a bit more pragmatic.” But the uncertainty remains:
“Making an exhibition is like creating a Frankenstein’s monster. At first, it’s just parts. But at some point, it starts to live on its own.”
“And then you don’t really know what it will become.”

Written by Sander Johannesberg. Johannesberg studies art history at the University of Oslo (UiO) and has had an internship in Kunstnerforbundet this spring semester as part of a practical course in art mediation at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, UiO. In addition to the interview, he has also written the exhibition text for Roderick Hietbrinks show Cavities, read it here. Johannesberg has also written art critiques for Kunstavisen.

Publisert 14. mai 2026
Sist oppdatert 14. mai 2026