MELK

0322
Marianne Bjørnmyr
Epitaph

Marianne Bjørnmyr Untitled (Olmec), 2021 36 x 28 cm Silver gelatin print

March 11 – April 3, 2022

MELK is excited to present Marianne Bjørnmyr’s first solo show at the gallery titled Epitaph.

Marianne Bjørnmyr’s work is concerned with photography, authenticity and documentation, dwelling upon visibility and invisibility, science and phenomena. The work Epitaph is an exploration of lost artefacts and cultural deconstruction. Presenting photographs and objects where epochs, geographies, cultures and materials collide, dissolving into a conflation of the past and the present. Through the work, an array of fragments from artefacts are brought together, and re-assembled: from ritual and religious objects and monuments, to everyday cultural heritage. 

The objects have been cast in new forms, based on a historical vestige. The original artefacts are long gone; looted, destroyed or lost. The objects, cast in gypsum from silicone casts assembled from 3D rendered models, are not reconstructed as exact copies but as an imagined visualisation of something that was never visually documented. The photographs and cast objects share references to each other as replicas in the way they copy and multiply. 

The artefacts originate from different geographies and with a timespan of over 2000 years. Presented together, the objects generate new histories, connections and readings of the cultures they represent – as a poetic cartography, disregarding precise classification.

––

Marianne Bjørnmyr (b. 1986, Bodø) lives and works in Bodø. Bjørnmyr completed her MA in Photography from University of the Arts London in 2016. Solo exhibitions include Buskerud kunstsenter, Drammen (2021), Stormen kunst/Dáddja, Bodø (2021), Nordnorsk kunstsenter, Svolvær (2020) and Reykjavik Museum of Photography (2016). Her work has also been shown at Peckham24, London (2019), Unseen Photofestival, Amsterdam (2019), Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin (2016) amongst others. Her work is held in public collections like The North Norwegian Art Museum and The Arctic University of Norway (KORO). In collaboration with Dan Mariner, Marianne runs the artist-driven space NOUA in Bodø.

 

The exhibition is generously supported by Fond for Lyd og Bilde and Regionale prosjektmidler.

MELK