The Residency by Muscle Temple

Among the urban issues that have been frequently addressed in the art scene in the course of the last few years, gentrification plays a key role. However, given that the process of gentrification has been analyzed and discussed by urban activists as well as in academia since the 1960’s, artists started to reflect their Janus-faced role as victims and agents of gentrification rather late.

From May – October 2013, The Residency by Muscle Temple, initiated by Goro Tronsmo, transformed 0047’s premises in a former dairy factory in Grønland into a loft apartment, reminiscent of the now mainstream, but originally precarious living conditions of artists in the 1980’s. As part of a curated residency program, artists, choreographers, curators and writers lived and worked in the new loft apartment.

The residency program was funded through renting out Goro Tronsmo’s apartment in Berlin-Neukölln via the house rental website Airbnb under the catch-phrase ‘Cool architecture in new hip area’. The income from Airbnb allowed Goro Tronsmo to cover travel, food and production costs of the artists invited in The Residency. Thus the project created a link between two highly gentrifying districts in Berlin and Oslo, folding gentrification issues and art market economy upon itself.

On the weekend of the 9th – 10th of November, the architectural construction was dismantled and the factory premises of 0047 again turned into a white painted gallery room, exposing The Residency as a staged reality. On Sunday December the 15th, The Residency by Muscle Temple functioned as a backdrop for a talk, which more specifically dealt with the gentrification development around Tøyen/Grønland, and the art scene’s connection to this development.

Goro Tronsmo is an artist and stage director living and working in Oslo, Stockholm and Berlin. She creates context specific stage performances and artworks which reflect and question the curatorial, architectural and institutional framework for performance art as well as for visual art. Her project Muscle Temple has for the last seven years been popping up as nightclub – as performing art occurrences – as architectural installation. Each intervention includes collaborations with other artists.

Kine Lillestrøm is an artist born 1977 in Tynset, Norway. She lives and works in Berlin and Oslo. Kine Lillestrøm investigates how displacements in perspective change our perception and comprehension of a spatial structure.

Performance Schedule:

24 August: I’ll be sitting in a chair, different from the one you are in now

2 September: Saralunden’s Place Oslo/Durationa

15 September: Living Loft by Muscle Temple

5-6 October: Urskog 1, Urskog 2 by Ingri Fiksdal

23 October: Opening and Clumsy Corner by Lisa Torell & Johanna Gustafsson Fürst

26 October: MINUS GREEN by GFS