Anne-Britt Rage

Artist, lecturer and editor. Lives and works in Oslo, Norway, and Berlin, Germany.

I have late in life jumped into the art world, in fact not until 1995, when I realized that the academic world with its rules was too narrow for me. I quit writing my theses at the institute of History of Ideas at the University of Oslo and involved myself with artwork – first at Nansenskolen, Norwegian Humanistic Academy in Lillehammer, primarily with Lars Paalgard as my teacher, later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, Austria. I have always been involved in political and social work and it was natural for me to continue with this in the field of art. I do not follow neither the normative scientific rules nor the normativity of political life and I strongly believe that the professionalised society has the need of other eyes, watchmen of society, minority groups and democracy: be it professors, writers, musicians, visual artists, activists or the people in the streets.

As I often work outside the gallery world it is the people in the streets I want to meet. My art should be seen as a starting point of discussion and hopefully a motivation for other people to join the group of protesters be it in an artistic or activist way. Sometimes my artworks are pointing out injustices or attitudes that are rooted in some sort of historical agreement or lie, as in “Gallery Asylum” or “Grenzüberschreitung”. Other times the process is more important than the actual result, as for “Teatre Magnètic” where the people involved do the artwork and the involvement is carried on in future actions.

I do believe that people working together can push a project into more powerful statements, both during the making of the work and through the work itself. Or let’s say it this way: Often the work becomes more complex and leaves the area of populist outbursts: No to easy answers and a simplified worldview! Connected to this I am deeply fascinated by the knowledge people have gained and I try to bring this knowledge to others by starting interdisciplinary projects, as for example the book “NO – Fortress Europe”. The book contains 6 articles of writers, researchers and activists of 6 nationalities and artworks of 14 visual artists dealing with xenophobia and the wave of right wing populist parties being the winners of the election polls in the beginning of the new millennium.