Serina Erfjord
Mellom havet og muren
[Between the Sea and the Wall]
The Cabinet
20.02.—30.03.2025

14 100 candle wicks cover the main wall in The Cabinet. The wicks are hand-dyed in two shades of blue; light blue at the top and a darker blue at the bottom, resembling an open hori­zon where the sky meets the sea. In the upper section, the wicks hang vertically in straight lines, while in the lower section, the threads are more dis­ordered and inter­twined. The work is installed in two rows, allowing the viewer to move between them and become enve­loped by the abs­tracted land­scape. If all the threads were laid out end to end, their total length would be 40 kilo­meters. This is about the same length as Gaza’s coast­line along the Medi­terra­nean Sea.

Palestinian author Atef Abu Saif speaks of the sea: ‘It should have been ours, but it is never ours. It should have been a way out into the world, but no one has ever taken a boat and travelled to another country from Gaza. Even the fisher­men are allowed to go only a few kilo­meters offshore (…). It is not a sea, but yet another wall’ (Morgenbladet, 3rd of January, 2025). Large gas reserves are believed to exist off Gaza’s coast, which Palestinians are unable to access.

Along the other walls of the exhi­bition space, naked steel rebars hang sus­pended from the ceiling. Like candle wicks, rebars are intended to be part of a structure, but here, they are rend­ered function­less. Some of them sway gently.

The elongated L-shape of The Cabinet might resemble the map of the Gaza Strip, often called the world’s largest prison. In Gaza, brutal human rights viola­tions have taken place. More than 14 100 children from Gaza have been killed since the 7th of October, 2023*. A geno­cide has occurred, the world and the United Nations’ universal human rights have failed to protect the people of Gaza. Those who remain must carry the burden of an incom­pre­hensible loss.

Erfjord’s sculptural installations have a quality of being both subtle and monu­mental. She has deve­loped a poetic visual language marked by under­stated or almost un­notice­able gestures. With a refined aware­ness of materials and move­ment, rhythm and space, she constructs envir­on­ments where complex themes are allowed to unfold in the encounter with the viewer.

Serina Erfjord (b. 1982) holds a master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2014), and is based in Sandefjord. Since 2008, she has exhibited both in Norway and abroad. Her works are repre­sented in the collections of the National Museum, the Norwegian Parliament, and The City of Oslo Art Collection, among others.

In 2024, she was awarded the Arve Hovig memo­rial grant for her textile work WHOEVER, presented at the 137th Autumn Exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus. The work was a tribute to the doctors at Al Awda Hospital in Gaza.

*) According to data from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 14 100 of Gaza’s 1,1 million children (over 1%) have been killed. The actual number is undoubt­edly higher. Source: Save the Children, January 10, 2025.