The June Exhibition 2025
Her i vår nødvendighet
Here in Our Necessity
22.05.—29.06.2025
Participating artists: Freja Burgess, Sigrid Espelien, Jad El Khoury, Torbjørn Kvasbø, Erlend Leirdal, Konrad Mehus, Unn Sønju, Kjell Varvin, Camilla Edström Ödemark, and Ella Aandal
Curator: Ingunn Svanes Almedal
Craft has played a central role in Kunstnerforbundet’s activities ever since architect Arnstein Arneberg organised an exhibition of applied arts in 1911 – marking the beginning of an unbroken tradition of presenting and mediating this field. The founders of Kunstnerforbundet viewed craft as a discipline of great intrinsic value, situated at the intersection of culture, tradition, and the avant-garde – and they moved effortlessly between fine art and craft. The June Exhibition 2025 draws upon this vital legacy and examines the ability of the materials to unfold through spatial and processual developments.
The exhibition’s title, Her i vår nødvendighet (Here in Our Necessity), suggests fundamental connections that become apparent as soon as the creative process begins. Just as there has always been an inseparable relationship between our physical surroundings, craftsmanship, and its cultural context, there is also a close and dynamic interplay between the artist, lived experience, and the materials being used.
The exhibition highlights the artist’s persistent drive to guide us into a practice where traces of the process are not merely present, but become an integrated and indispensable part of the work. As the Danish poet Inger Christensen put it: «As a human being, one cannot avoid being part of the artistic process, where origin, creation, and effect are inextricably bound together». The work thus appears not merely as an expression, but as a meeting point between language and perception – a place where material immersion and poetic insight interweave.
In encountering chance and contextual conditions, a continuous renegotiation takes place within the artist’s practice, where improvisation, intuition, and experience function as essential sources of new insight. This has resulted in an exhibition that encompasses both finished works, where time and process are inscribed in the material, and processual works developing in real time – interacting with the exhibition space and audience. The ten artists in the exhibition work within a broad field of knowledge, engaging with both a rich material heritage and a range of themes spanning war and conflict, landscape, urbanity, and cultural hierarchies. Some of the artists have been prominent figures in the development of contemporary craft history – from the artistic uprisings of the 1970s to the present – while others are in the early stages of their careers, still pursuing their education.
The June Exhibition 2025 is Kunstnerforbundet’s contribution to NK50, the 50th anniversary of Norske Kunsthåndverkere (Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts).
The exhibition has received support from NK50, Norske Kunsthåndverkere, and the Fritt Ord Foundation.
