2024

Stripped Down to the Bones confronts the audience with the invisible and visible injustices embedded in our society. It commemorates lives that have been systematically destroyed by settler colonialism and forced migration. The performance reenacts an assembly line where human identities are shredded to serve the desires of oppressive powers. What remains of these lives? The piece seeks to embody and care for the bodies that are lost and the ongoing attempts to restore fragments of existence after the loss of families, land, and cultures.

The collaborative re-enactment of “Stripped Down to the Bones” took place as part of the Oslo Culture Night held at the former Museum of Contemporary Art—a building that once served as a bank and that has been unused since the museum moved to the new premises in 2017. The performance was particularly powerful in this charged and historically significant space. And in Oslo which is a city long associated with efforts for peace, bears a complex history. This 3rd edition of the performance (premiere was in 2017 Kalmar Konstmuseum), was made possible by Mesén and Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute made in cooperation with Oslo National Academy of the Arts (MFA in Art and Public Space).

Participants:
Anna Botkin 
Luanda Carneiro 
Piotr Chrzanowski 
Marie Cole 
Beata Daria 
Finlay J Hall  
Pål Sterk-Hansen 
Sunniva Alise Larsen 
Hanna Retsö 
Marea Vigesaa 

Thank you also to the makers of the beautiful table by Stein Skedsmo and the remaking of the skeleton sculpture by artist Ansgar Ole Olsen. Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Photography: Jon Gorospe