Knut Åsdam was born in Trondheim (1968). He lives and works in Oslo. Åsdam has exhibited at among other places Tate Britain, London; Manifesta; the Istanbul Biennial; the Venice Biennale; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; P.S.1, New York; and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. He has had solo exhibitions at among other venues Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2007); the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2006); and Kunsthalle Bern (2005). In addition his films have been shown at film festivals including Locarno, Oberhausen and Rotterdam. Feature articles on his work have been published in Artforum, Grey Room, Le Monde Diplomatique, Untitled Magazine and many more periodicals.
Knut Åsdam's exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall is structured around three projects that deal with specific geographical areas. With different approaches – in two new films and in a photographic project – the exhibition revolves around the sections within the cities London, Tripoli and Oslo. The exhibition is built up as an architectural installation where the boundaries between inside and outside, between exhibition architecture and artwork, and between the universe of the films and the physical surroundings of the viewers merge with one another.
Abyss was filmed in various locations in East London, at the Thames Gateway and on the outskirts of the area where the Olympic Arena is being constructed. The film portrays an urban reality that is affected in a variety of ways by migration, in the sense of bot...