TOGETHER ELSEWHERE / IAMNOWHERE, 2025
Edition: 1+1 AP 100 cm x 171 cm / PhotoRag 305g Hahnemühle, framed with oak, AR glass. (Also available in 80 cm x 47 cm 5+2AP)
Edition: 2/3+1 AP Neon, wall sculpture W 100 cm x H 14 cm Transparent glass tubes filled with neon gas, transformer.
In Ina Otzko’s interdisciplinary practice, ecological, social, and planetary questions are explored through a contemplative and embodied approach, with a focus on relationships and time. The neon work iamnowhere (2025) evokes the sensation of being here and nowhere at once, a threshold state, carrying the potential for grounding and connection. Together Elsewhere (2025) originates from a thirty-minute live performance on a platform in the sea, set against the mountain range of The Seven Sisters on the Helgeland coast of Northern Norway. Here, the artist leans forward onto a staff pressed against her chest, maintaining a fragile balance through the interplay between body, breath, material, and surroundings. Behind her, the mountains rise as witnesses of a distant past, reawakening legends of trolls turned to stone by the first touch of sunlight. Through silent activism, Otzko re-envisions our relationship to the Earth, land, and water – not as possessions or resources, but as a living weave of invisible bonds in continuous transformation.
SEVEN TIMES THE COLOR OF THE SUN 04.10.25 - 04.01.26 / The North Norwegian Art Centre
Artists: Hilde Hauan Johnsen / Saodat Ismailova / Olof Marsja / Ina Otzko / Angelo Plessas / Alf Magne Salo
«Seven Times The Color of The Sun». The exhibition is the second chapter of Solar Kin, a long-term curatorial project that follows artistic explorations of post-carbon imaginaries in the context of the global transition from fossil fuels to renewables, particularly solar energy. It approaches the sun as a vital source of life and a central figure in ancestral cosmologies, while tracing its contemporary reframing as a symbol of ecological promise. In this transition, hope, contradictions, and shifting structures of power and accountability intertwine.
In the Maya creation myth, as retold by Robin Wall Kimmerer, after several failed attempts to find the right material to craft humankind, the gods tried using sunlight.
The beings that emerged were described as «seven times the color of the sun». Radiant, skilled and powerful, they placed themselves above all other species and natural processes, as if the very light that gave them form had become a source of blindness, rather than vision. The project draws on this image to consider humanity’s place and responsibility today.
If the first chapter of Solar Kin, titled «I converse with fire», traced the arc from sacred ancestral fires to the burning of fossil fuels, «Seven times the color of the sun» turns toward a broader understanding of energy: beyond its role as a productive force, and into an essence that traverses all beings and matter, from the vast reach of solar radiation to the minute scales of matter. It approaches the solar not only as material resource, but also as a symbolic, affective, and spiritual dimension of life in an era increasingly shaped by technological mediation, fractures, and dissonances.
Drawing from Indigenous epistemologies and Norwegian folklore, as well as Zoroastrian cosmologies and Greek mythologies, the exhibition brings together artists who engage these inheritances in relation to the imperatives of the present and the horizons of what is to come. Their works weave ancestral knowledge with contemporary technologies, spiritualities, and material practices, foregrounding energy as relational, vital, and alive. In doing so, the exhibition opens a space for imagining non-extractive, interdependent ways of inhabiting the world.
Curated by Adriana Alves & Vanina Saracino.
Photo: 5-8 Kjell Ove Storvik
Exhibition supported by KiN / Regionale Prosjektmidler Høst 2025.
IT WAS MEANT FOR ALL THINGS TO MEET
Four man show with Ina Otzko, Anne Lingaard Møller, Eva Fachè and Jet Pascua / Galleri Nord-Norge, 2022
"I was meant for all things to meet: to make the clouds pause in the mirror of my waters, to be home to fallen rain that finds its way to me, to turn eons of loveless rock into lovesick pebbles and carry them as humble gifts back to the sea which brings life back to me." -Richard Blanco
I was meant for all things to meet. This first line of the poem "Complaint from El Río Grande", which imagines what the so-called "Big River" would say in response to all the encroachments that humanity has made, serves as inspiration and a hopeful reminder for the four artists of why it is almost a necessity to continue making art. With their own unique way of addressing questions of time, consciousness, individual and shared responsibility, human interaction and behaviour, whether personal, political or philosophical – or through attentive studies of context, repetition, form and light, these artists present their trying to find poetry in these challenging times.
…Then countries – your invention-maps jigsawing the world into colored shapes caged in bold lines to say: you’re here, not there, you’re this, not that, to say: yellow isn’t red, red isn’t black, black is not white, to say: mine, not ours, to say war, and believe life’s worth is relative.
I presented a selection from the series Interiors 72/12, the full series Get into the heart of the matter, A handful, and Make me tender again.
GET INTO THE HEART OF THE MATTER, 2020-2021
A series of photographs made during Covid-19 lockdown in Italy. The project explores intimacy and time through the processes of physical and emotional challenges and changes in context of (be)longing.
Quiet yourself / Open eyes / Open ears / Open mind / Open heart / Dive In / Immerse yourself / Play / Listen / Absorb / Reflect / Get to the heart of the matter
(Brian Pertl, Deep listener, Dean, Lawrence Conservatory of Music, Appelton, Wisconsin)
The series was presented in the solo exhibition Slowly becoming light and in the group show It was meant for all things to meet.
Featured in KATALOG 35.2, 2024
Curated selection of video works focusing upon body / closeness / rhythm / flow for the solo exhibition Slowly becoming light / Festival artist for Festspillene Helgeland 2022. Screened at Petter Dass Museet, 04.02-31.05.2023
Timeless Breath Exchange 02:32 min / Soundtrack Ina Otzko
P & P Bell Set No. 1 03:24 min / Soundtrack used by permission © Michael Nyman
Make me tender again 01:47 min / Soundtrack Ina Otzko
V-Project 03:54 min / Soundtrack Ina Otzko
SURRENDER, 2023 / Galleri Nord-Norge, Harstad
Mnemosyne, series of eight photographs, 2023
130 cm x 130 cm, Hahnemühle PhotoRag 305g Editions: 3+1 AP
60 cm x 60 cm / Hahnemühle PhotoRag 305g. Editions: 5+2 AP
Lightbox 400 cm x 400 cm.
Memory, history, heritage.
Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, teaches that remembering is never neutral. As mother of the Muses and giver of language, she embodies the power to shape history, define heritage, and silence or preserve what matters. To invoke her was once to recall ancient rites; today her presence warns us that memory itself is political—determining whose stories survive, which voices are erased, and how we imagine the future. In an age of ecological crisis, Mnemosyne is also the guardian of the Earth’s memory: the landscapes, species, and rhythms we risk forgetting. To remember becomes resistance, a way of keeping alive both human and planetary heritage.
"The road goes north, back to
a small bay, where my lifetime
is glimpsed in the reflection
of the sky in the water"
Hanne Bramness
(Translated by Anna Reckin)
Surrender, video 07:00 loop, sound, 2023
How is your heart? Series of b/w and color polaroids, 2023
Slowly becoming light, neon, 2022
Take your time, neon / 2015
(Be)longing, neon /2014
Photo: Steve Nilsen / Galleri Nord-Norge
Surrender, 2023 / Loop 07:00 min / Sound
A contemplative exploration of surrender and presence, where water becomes mirror, teacher, and invisible thread connecting individual and collective, inner and outer currents.
TRUST, 2025
42 cm x 15 cm x 9 cm
Object of Himalaya salt, folded cloths, blood
Trust is at the heart of a well-functioning democracy. Blood and salt are both materials with strong and extensive symbolic values in human history. "You are the salt of the earth!" (Matthew 5:13) We find ourselves in a post-factual era where we see tendencies that facts are not always what weighs most heavily in social debates, but the debater's own feelings, opinions and preferences.
Midpunkt NK 50 Years
Galleri Nord-Norge, Harstad 07.03-27.04.25
Bymuseet i Bodø, Nordlandsmuseet 10.05-14.09.2025
Terminal B, Kunsthall Kirkenes 13.11-23.12.2025
Review of the exhibition in Hakapik by Øystein Voll
"Something that challenges me in a good way is Ina Otzko's Tillit/Trust (2025). What from a distance looks like seven bricks stacked on top of each other turns out to be a stack of blocks of Himalayan salt. On top of the salt blocks lies what at first appears to be a reddish-brown old book. This turns out to be a folded cloth stained with blood. Here the artist uses several symbolic elements, and in her catalogue text points to living in a post-factual time where values are on the decline in favor of the individual's personal feelings and preferences." Øystein Voll
Photo: Steve Nilsen
TREASURES IN HEAVEN 2018-2019
Nordnorsken 2019 / Shore line / Arkhangelsk Regional Lore Museum, Arkhangelsk, 2020.
Purchased for Meløy Helse og Velferdssenter, Norland fylkeskommune, 2021
“Man will not perish from the Earth! At the darkest hour his eyes will be opened. The Earth and the fullness thereof are his, but not to destroy..In no celestial register is it written how far we must go or how much we must endure. It is we, we ourselves, who decide" Henry Miller, Stand still like the hummingbird
Tyrrhenian Currents: Humanity in Our Hands
Inspired by Henry Miller’s assertion that humanity’s fate lies in our own hands, my work engages with the Tyrrhenian Sea and the environmental threats it faces with renewed urgency. His words, “The Earth and the fullness thereof are his, but not to destroy,” resonate deeply with this vital ecosystem — rich in life yet strained by pollution, overfishing, and climate change. The series seeks to illuminate both the beauty and fragility of the Tyrrhenian, underscoring our interconnectedness with the natural world. As Miller suggests that “our eyes will open in the darkest hour,” these interventions act as a preemptive call to awareness and conscious action: a reminder that the richness of this sea, like the fullness of the Earth, is ours to cherish and protect, not to annihilate.
Series of seven photographs of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Hahnemühle Photo Rag 305g, 100 cm x 150 cm Edition 3 + 1 AP
LEVIATHAN, 2015
Site responsive project for the solo exhibition Sono qui, puoi sentirlo? at Castel dell´Ovo, Naples, 2015, curated by Maria Savarese. An adapted version was exhibited at Bodø Art Society, 2018.
Leviathan consists of 78 unique photographs from the crater of the dormant Solfatara Volcano in the Campi Flegrei Regional Park, Pozzuoli, near Naples. By choosing the volcano’s heart I sought to portray what lies beyond ordinary perception. The title refers to Leviathan as both ego and myth: a spiritual lesson in desire, restraint, creation, and destruction. Just as nature holds the power to give and to undo, so do we. To capture this fragile tension, I worked with Polaroid film, a material that never fully settles—its chemistry shifting with temperature, resisting finality, refusing perfection. Like us, it remains in constant transformation, suspended between becoming and dissolving. The site was closed for the public after a fatal accident in 2017.
TRUST / TETRAHEDRON neon / copper sculpture 150 cm x 150 cm x 150 cm inspired by the shape of the reflectors on site and a composition of field recordings from the crater is also a part of the project. https://soundcloud.com/inaotzko/trust-tetrahedron
"Truth also is the pursuit of it: Like happiness, and it will not stand. Even the verse begins to eat away In the acid. Pursuit, pursuit; A wind moves a little, Moving in a circle, very cold. How shall we say? In ordinary discourse— We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words, The clockwork of the world. What is inexplicable Is the ‘preponderance of objects,’ The sky lights Daily with that predominance. And we have become the present. We must talk now. Fear Is fear. But we abandon one another". Leviathan, From New Collected Poems by George Oppen (1908-1984).
INTERIORS 72/12
Installation view from Bodø Art Society, 2018 / Castel dell'Ovo, 2015 / Galleri SYN
Edition: 3+2AP 70 x 105 cm / 40 x 50 cm
Longing and Belonging – Ina Otzko’s visited interiors
The interiors that Otzko photographs are the private homes of people she has met whilst traveling. Yet the larger story is denied the viewer - there are no clues as to the relationships or the narratives surrounding each carefully composed domestic interior. These settings exude a masculine geometry; carefully composed lines and planes show a haphazard urban collection of windows, storage shelves, doors, cupboards, various sofas, mirrors, clocks and cushions. Such timeless icons as window, clock and mirror are laden with heavy symbolic overtones; this iconography stretches back into a myriad of art historical references from Titian, the Japanese Ukiyo-e school and Vermeer, to Matisse, Munch and beyond. Far from being comforted by traditional content, there is something unnerving, almost provocative, about Otzko’s art. These private spaces have been made into a voyeuristic stage by the artist. We view an immensely private time when a semi naked woman makes herself at home in a friend’s residence. Completely still, the curves of her body contrast or echo the enclosing lines of each interior.
“To explore how a new space occurs or is created between meeting and confrontation with inner and outer, longing and belonging, intimacy and vulnerability”. (Ina Otzko)
Ina Otzko’s semi naked self-portraiture imposes itself upon these interiors. As both photographer and model, she is always simultaneously the subject and object of her work. A subtle sense of absence seems to withdraw her from the visual probe of the camera. Her gaze is often directed toward an indeterminate distance outside the pictorial field. Visual pleasure is not present; this semi naked woman is held behind a constantly shifting barrier so that the spectator is made to feel like an intruder. However familiar these interiors appear, the artist’s body is given a specific function and both takes and creates space. The notion of the intimate and private space of the indoors is played out by her presence. Otzko’s posed body gives the viewer a key into a free movement inside each private room. The viewer’s own experiences and history may then infuse these works with new information whereby communication can happen between the work and the viewer. We compare, therefore we are. As an artist and person Otzko cannot remain still, her nomadic lifestyle has led to a series of projects in various geographic sites. But each site involves a primary personal involvement, whereby the wanderer must create her own security, her own safety, by attempting to organize any strands of chaos.
These photographed interiors can be seen as moments of order, moments of self-consolidation, which are thereafter classified purely by a house number and a date. In 1971 Martin Heidegger famously stated that: “all distances in time and space are shrinking”. Indeed the contemporary pace of life and its information flow seems to confine us into smaller segments of time. There is hardly any time to breathe deeply, let alone meditate. Ina Otzko’s works highlight the subjectivity of the perception of time. She uses her poise and body to challenge and provoke our ideas of private space. Her artistic methods are seemingly very simple, but they result in images that question the contemporary viewer: When was the last time I created a private moment for myself, a space of contemplation, and allowed my simple physical presence to belong fully to a physical place? Martin Worts, Stavanger January 2013
Limited edition artist book with poems by Hanne Bramness, launched at the solo exhibition for Nordisk Samtidspoesifestival, Hamar Art Society, 2013.
REFLEX The North Norwegian Art Centre, 2012 / Kulturens Hus, Luleå, Sweden, 2013 / Sami Center for Contemporary Art, Karasjok, 2013
The sculpture was exhibited in I enter the landscape from the north / Kulturbadet Galleri, 2024
STAY A WHILE YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL, 2012
Sculpture 100 x 100 cm / neon, two platforms of concrete (10x100x100 cm and 60x100x100 cm), a pulley, three transformers & selection from Interiors 72/12, 18 x 24 cm / Selection of Interiors 72/12 with poems by Hanne Bramness.
In the context of REFLEX, the sculpture extends Ina Otzko’s ongoing exploration of presence, perception, and the gaze — themes also evident in her photographic series Interiors. Where Interiors investigates self-staging and reflection through the lens, the neon and concrete sculpture translates this inquiry into spatial and material form. The work’s title, drawn from Goethe’s Faust, evokes the human desire to arrest time at the point of beauty, while its physical structure — two concrete platforms in tension, one grounded and one suspended, connected by luminous, curling neon lines — embodies this struggle between fixation and flux. As in her photographic works, Otzko examines the shifting relationship between subject and object, observer and observed. In STAY A WHILE YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL, the mirror becomes light itself: reflective not by surface, but by resonance — an illuminated echo of the desire to see, to hold, to remain.
Seen in a political and contemporary context, STAY A WHILE YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL appears as a quiet yet precise commentary on our time — an era marked by restlessness, consumption, and constantly shifting attention. The glow of neon, typically associated with advertising, desire, and urban spectacle, becomes in Otzko’s work a poetic counter-image: a space for stillness and reflection. The two concrete platforms — one grounded, one suspended — can be read as symbols of power and vulnerability, stability and dissolution. Between them, the abstract light forms pulse like traces of energy, as if the work itself is trying to hold on to something that is slipping away.
"Her contributions to "REFLEX" are marked by references to art in the 20th century and can be interpreted as an indirect criticism. In the photography series Interiors, Otzko stages herself in an interior. The motifs and posing are linked to photographers like Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz who took similar photographs in the 1920s and 30s. But Otzko, unlike the female figures of her predecessors, functions as both subject and object in one and the same image. The small formats and associated texts highlight the intimate motifs, where the mirror plays an important role. From time to time we become uncertain about what is mirroring and what is not. The figure seems to go in unison with its surroundings." Torill Østby Haaland, curatorial text for the exhibition catalogue for REFLEX.
MUTATIO (Pietà) 2007-2019
“Nonviolence is the only way of resolving our differences. Preservation of life, human and nonhuman, in all its astonishing diversity and beauty…another world is possible” Ralph Metzner, PHD, Ecology of Consciousness
Installation view from Stormen Library, Bodø, printed on fabric, 375 x 300 cm for NorlandiArt 2018-2019
Installed with a selection from Interiors 21712 and 313/13, Cosmoscow Art Fair - Regarding Spaces with Sunderø Gallery, 2018
104 x 85 cm / Edition 2-5 +1 AP / Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultrasmooth 305g paper
120 x 100 cm / Edition 2-3 +1 AP / Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultrasmooth 305g paper
Ina Otzko's "Mutatio (Pietà)" is to be considered a major work in the group exhibition. And it is not only because of its size, although at 300x375 cm it towers over the other works in the exhibition. It is impressive that Otzko has tried her hand at the subject. The Pietà is one of the most respected motifs in Western art history, with roots in 14th-century Germany. Whether it is Michelangelo's "Pietà" in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican from the late 15th century or Sam Taylor-Wood's "Pietà" from 2001, there is something peculiar, melancholic and thoughtful about it.
A comparison of these three Pietà versions is an interesting thought exercise. Michelangelo's marble sculpture "Pietà" shows an immensely young Mary holding and displaying her dead son for eternity. Taylor-Wood's video work lifts the motif from its religious overtones and transposes it into everyday human life. Taylor-Wood's video work is in many ways a self-portrait, showing Taylor-Wood as Mary and actor Robert Downey Jr. as Jesus. At the time, Taylor-Wood had been battling several rounds of cancer, while Downey was not only a famous actor but also someone who had himself struggled with a major drug problem. Where Michelangelo's "Pietà" shows a mother's love and inhuman strength, Taylor-Wood's "Pietà" shows a close, human love and a sky-high struggle for survival. We meet the portrayed individuals as they are in the most demanding task of their lives, overcoming their personal challenges and recognizing each other's struggles in their own. Otzko's "Mutatio (Pietà)" in NordlandiART-18 retains neither the art historical and Christian undertones nor the deeply personal and sensual artistic content of Michelangelo and Taylor-Wood. Rather, Otzko's photo is a snapshot, a bit of the truth. It is painless, beautiful, well-composed and calm. In contrast to Michelangelo's and Taylor-Wood's work, Otzko's self-portrait is a figure comfortably positioned sitting on the floor. The inhuman struggle, the insurmountable demands that follow holding this other human being up, are gone in Otzko's photo. There is no heartbreaking and all-consuming maternal grief or trembling muscles and physical and mental strain that characterize Otzko's photo.
Otzko holds this well-built, young man in her arms and whether he is alive or dead does not seem. Her strain and his physical condition are not important. There are two people who meet in a toothy and unclothed moment.Their exposed skin emphasizes the vulnerability, but also the bond between them. At the same time, the picture with its 300x375 cm is actually hung with tight ropes, so that the canvas itself is reminiscent of stretched skin. This duality reinforces the impression of the work. It is as if she is saying in this work that after all, here and now, we are together as people on this earth. Ellen Marie Sæthre-Mcguirk, 2018 / Bodønu.no
FALLING FOR RELIGION, 2011
Unique work. Letters shaped in glass tubes, red neon gas, 30 cm high, 3 x transformers. 300 cm installed on floor or wall in a circle. Commissioned for exhibition at Galleri Backer, Vestfold University, Tønsberg 2011, presented at The North Norwegian Art Centre BlackBox 2012.
Installed in a circle, echoing the cyclical nature of history, "Falling for Religion" is a neon work pulsating with a blood-red glow, speaking to the visceral and often perilous allure of belief in our contemporary world. The fragility of the illuminated glass, filled with a substance evoking lifeblood, mirrors the delicate and sometimes volatile nature of faith, particularly when manipulated or weaponized. In a time marked by conflict and division often fueled by religious ideologies, the seductive pull of absolute certainty, repeating as cycles often do, can feel like a descent, a "falling" into systems that promise solace but can yield profound consequences. The intense, almost arterial red serves as a stark reminder of the human cost when conviction hardens into dogma and empathy bleeds out in the name of faith, a pattern tragically repeated throughout history. This work, in its stark simplicity and potent symbolism within its circular form, aims to provoke reflection on the complex and often fraught relationship between faith, identity, and the unfolding realities of our global landscape.
MEDITATIONS ON SILENCE / STORMY WEATHER 2009-2015
What fine weather I wonder
The loneliness Or The uncertainty
Nothing is harder than to give them shape
That will allow us to look them in the face
All that was opening closes All that was helping deserts us
A man is on one or the other bar
This is the very basis of our commitment
They take shape
I repeat
They take action
Do you not feel it under your thumb as it holds the corner of the pages?
However much we expect it, we do not recognize it
The broken parts cannot be replaced
I alone am responsible for their actions
And I leave you
The prospect of being homeless
Text extracts from the book The Difficulty of Being / Jean Cocteau
IAMNOWHERE, 2024
Solo exhibition at Muratcentoventidue Arte Contemporanea, Bari / Italy
iamnowhere, neon sculpture, 100 cm x 14 cm. Edition 1/3 + 1 AP
Mnemosyne, 2023
digitalized negatives printed on Hahnemühle PhotoRag 305g.
Edition 5 + 2 AP / 60 x 60 cm (65 x 65 cm with white boarder)
iamnowhere revolves around Ina Otzko’s ongoing exploration of connection, communication, and belonging — both visible and invisible. Living nomadically, with a practice grounded in listening and embodied awareness, Otzko works across photography, video, sound, text, sculpture, and performance. Her research-based approach investigates time, space, memory, identity, and the energetic exchanges that shape our relationships with self, others, and the planet. Drawing on the philosophy of deep ecology, her work reflects on what it means to be human and our coexistence with nature. The ocean, a recurring element in her practice, becomes a space of contemplation and return — a reminder of our interdependence with all living systems. This installation brings together iamnowhere - a red neon wall sculpture, Surrender; a seven-minute video loop; and the photographic series Mnemosyne, named after the Greek goddess of memory and language — a guardian of remembrance and ancient knowing.
The neon work "iamnowhere" flickers with a poignant ambiguity, its stark declaration a stark counterpoint to the human desire for belonging. Illuminated in a space, it becomes a question mark hanging in the air, a visual representation of the alienation and placelessness felt in a transient world. Yet, within that very statement of absence, a potential for connection emerges. Shared in a public space, "iamnowhere" can become "wearenowhere," a silent acknowledgment of a collective experience of displacement, perhaps even fostering a sense of belonging in that shared feeling of not quite fitting in. The inherent duality of the piece – reading as both "iamnowhere" and "i am now here" – collapses the distance between alienation and presence. It suggests that the feeling of being nowhere can be a liminal space, a potential turning point towards finding or claiming one's place. The act of reading itself becomes an active engagement in constructing meaning, mirroring the individual journey towards belonging. Perhaps the "now here" is not a fixed location, but a state of mind, a moment of self-acceptance found within the feeling of being unanchored. The work, in its linguistic and spatial play, embodies the fluid and subjective nature of belonging itself.
WHO ARE WE TODAY? 2009
Presented at London Art Fair and Paris Photo, 2009 with Eric Franck Fine Art and in the solo exhibition Sono qui puoi sentirlo in Castel dell'Ovo, Naples 2015.
A series of 9 photographs 50 x 50 cm.
Edition 3 + 1 AP. Available 2.
The work presents a nuanced exploration of youth, identity, culture, and belonging through a series of nine analog photographs, each a 50 cm x 50 cm portrait captured on the rich texture of 6 x 6 film. The recurring subject, a girl adorned with different hats in each frame, becomes a powerful visual metaphor for the multifaceted nature of self. Each hat suggests a different role, aspiration, or projection of identity, hinting at the performative aspects of belonging and the various masks we adopt as we navigate youth and culture. The serial presentation invites viewers to consider the fluidity of identity, the subtle shifts and explorations that contribute to the ever-evolving answer to "Who are we today?" – a question posed not just to the subject, but to ourselves and our understanding of self within a broader social fabric.
Longing & Belonging, 2014
Solo exhibition at Ingo Seufert Gallery for Contemporary Art
"Ina Otzko is a Norwegian artist who travels the world to explore the differences between cultures, and to observe the manifold practices and beliefs of human nature. In her art, she expresses both an intuitive and rational curiosity, in which her search for reasoned belief challenges her integrity to feel. The resulting tensions that emerge are exemplified by her ongoing series of photographs, INTERIORS. In her solo exhibition at the recently opened Ingo Seufert Gallery, Munich, Otzko has selected three groups of images from these series, taken in India and Italy. Her focus is to expose facets resulting from the conflictual urges of Belonging and Longing that are within each of us. This struggle is an inevitable jolt of life, since the human soul seems to require a comfort of Belonging, which runs contrary to its Longing to surpass itself, to go beyond its existing experiences." Georgina Turner
STORM is from the series Interiors 313/13
Installed in window at Stormen Concert Hall, Bodø, commissioned by NorlandiArt 300 cm x 200 cm photograph on foil.
Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308g 50 cm x 70 cm / 70 cm x 105 cm Edition 3 +1
WE ARE WHAT WE BREATHE I / II, 2016 / #I was exhibited in Nordnorsken 2017
Editions: 3 + 1 AP / 100 cm x 150 cm
From the lands of the Kola Peninsula, where the skeleton of a radar stands sentinel amidst a landscape. A place resonant with echoes of the past parallell with the quiet rhythm of recreation area of mushroom hunters and berry pickers, a deeper truth emerges; We are, indeed, what we breathe. This project dated back to 2016 now resonates with a profound urgency, mirroring the escalating crises of our era. The climate shifts, an undeniable fever within and without, intertwine with the widening circumstances of political conflict, war and fracturing connection and belonging. More than ever, we are called to become our own internal radar, tuning into the subtle frequencies of our hearts, the whispers of each other, and the profound voice of Earth itself. In a world teetering on the edge, deep listening is a necessity. For in this intricate web of existence, the truth remains - We are interconnected.
Part of series of photographs from the Kola Residency Roadtrip Russia / Pikene på Broen, NO / 10 days, 2016