ARCTIC ART FORUM: CLIMATE MICROCHANGES

15.03.2026 THE CLIMATE HOUSE Natural History Museum, Oslo. Screening + Q&A 14:30-16:00

EYE IN THE SKY— a different documentary, a poetic, political reflection on a shifting geopolitical landscape. The film unfolds across sound and vision to ask urgent questions: What happens when industrial presence ends — and digital presence takes over? What remains of sovereignty when decisions are made elsewhere, and enforced from above? And what kind of peace are we building in a world of constant surveillance? As Norway’s last coal mine on Svalbard shut down in June 2025, the film captures this moment of transition — from resource extraction to signal extraction.

“Svalbard is no longer a periphery, it’s a strategic center", the artists say. Power today is exercised not through flags and armies, but through infrastructure, observation, and access. EYE IN THE SKY invites viewers to look again — not just at Svalbard, but at the global systems of mapping, monitoring, and governance that shape our shared future.

Arctic Pavilion

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
Curated by Adriana Alves & Vanina Sarachino

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.

IT WAS MEANT FOR ALL THINGS TO MEET

Artists: Ina Otzko, Anne Lingaard Møller, Eva Fachè and Jet Pascua / Galleri Nord-Norge, 2022
Curated by Ina Otzko & Jet Pascua

"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 the video Make me tender again.

GET INTO THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The series was presented in the solo exhibition Slowly becoming light and in the group show It was meant for all things to meet and at Juxtapositions Art Fair.

Featured in KATALOG 35.2, 2024

A series of photographs made during Covid-19 lockdown in Italy 2020-2021. 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)

15 images 20 cm x 20 cm mounted on aluminum with acrylic front.

SURRENDER

Solo Exhibition, Galleri Nord-Norge, Harstad, 2023

Surrender brought together photography, video, sound, and neon works in an immersive installation that invited viewers to slow down and enter different registers of time. Soft electronic tones and the sound of water accompanied the exhibition from the entrance, creating a continuous auditory field that connected the bright main hall with the darker video space beyond.

At the centre of the exhibition was Mnemosyne (2023), a series of eight large-scale black-and-white photographs depicting a woman moving along the shoreline in a translucent white dress. Printed at 130 x 130 cm, alongside a monumental 400 x 400 cm lightbox, the images unfold as a suspended sequence — somewhere between ritual, dance, and contemplation. The absence of colour renders the scenes timeless, while subtle variations in posture and gesture suggest a choreography shaped by tide, wind, and memory. Named after the Greek goddess of memory and language, the series reflects on how remembrance is never neutral: memory shapes history, identity, and belonging. In an age marked by ecological precarity, Mnemosyne evokes the idea of landscape itself as an archive — a keeper of human and planetary time.

The video work Surrender (2023), presented as a seven-minute loop, expands this temporal field. Filmed in shallow water where light fractures across sand and skin, the work immerses the viewer in shifting currents of pink, violet, red, and white. Water becomes both element and metaphor — a space of dissolution and connection. Rather than dramatizing crisis, the work cultivates attentiveness. It offers a state of presence in which body, light, air, and sea appear as interconnected systems.

Neon works including Take your time (2015), (Be)longing (2014), and Slowly becoming light (2022) punctuate the exhibition space. Installed with visible wiring and an unpolished directness, the neon texts function less as slogans than as quiet interruptions — reminders that time, attention, and belonging are active choices rather than given conditions. Positioned between the luminous photographic hall and the darker video chamber, Take your time operates as both passage and pause.

Throughout Surrender, Otzko explores time not as abstraction but as lived experience: time as tide, as memory, as bodily duration, as ecological inheritance. The exhibition does not prescribe conclusions; instead, it creates conditions for seeing, listening, and thinking — an invitation to dwell within the fragile continuity between human life and the more-than-human world.

Review

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.

"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

483897512_10160747590660588_2173237692289608792_n-1_edited.png

MIDTPUNKT 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

TRUST, 2025 (From the series The Sedimentation of Trust)

42 cm x 15 cm x 9 cm
Object of Himalaya salt, folded cloths, blood

Trust is the foundational sediment of a functioning democracy. In this work, I explore the material and symbolic resonance of blood and salt—substances that have anchored human history, ethics, and survival. "You are the salt of the earth!" (Matthew 5:13) serves as a reminder of our inherent value and responsibility to the collective. Yet, we currently navigate a post-factual era, where the weight of evidence is often superseded by personal preference and emotional projection.

By integrating blood and folded cloths within the strata of Himalayan salt, the work manifests the sedimentation of trust as an embodied, precarious accumulation. It highlights the tension between the "fast signal" of social debate and the "slow time" required for ethical inhabitancy. Here, the salt acts as a preservative for our shared humanity, while the blood signals the vital, vulnerable reality of our embodied sovereignty. To trust is to allow oneself to be witnessed; it is the slow labor of becoming now here, together.

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

Den 74 Nord-Norske Kunstutstilling - Annual Juried Traveling exhibition in Northern-Norway 2020

Shore line - Arkhangelsk Regional Lore Museum, Arkhangelsk, 2020

TREASURES IN HEAVEN 2018-2019

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

Sono qui, puoi sentirlo?

Solo exhibition, Castel dell’Ovo, Naples, 2015
Curated by Maria Savarese
Bodø Art Society, 2018

Staged within the historic spaces of Castel dell’Ovo and spanning over 400 m², the exhibition brought together key works produced between 2003 and 2015 across sculpture, performance, video, text and photography. Interiors 72/12 was included in the presentation and served as the exhibition’s primary visual identity.

Leviathan (2015) was conceived specifically for the exhibition. The work consists of 78 unique Polaroid photographs taken inside the crater of the dormant Solfatara volcano in the Campi Flegrei near Naples. Approaching the volcano as both geological body and metaphorical instrument, Otzko worked at the threshold of visibility, where steam, mineral residue, and unstable photographic chemistry resist clarity and permanence. The title refers to Leviathan as both mythic force and figure of excess — creation and destruction held in tension. The Solfatara site was permanently closed to the public in 2017.

The exhibition included an excerpt from George Oppen’s poem Leviathan, foregrounding the instability of truth and perception:

“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.”
— George Oppen, Leviathan (1908–1984)

The project included Trust / Tetrahedron, a neon and copper sculpture (150 × 150 × 150 cm) inspired by the site’s reflectors, accompanied by a composition of field recordings from the crater.

Interiors 72 / 12

Interiors 72 / 12 consists of a series of self-timed photographs and an 18-minute video; a performance for camera. The work was produced in a Berlin apartment while the building’s façade was under renovation. Working alone with a 10-second delay, Otzko stages her partially undressed body within rooms whose exterior surface — the building’s public face — is being stripped and rebuilt. The persistent sound of drilling and hammering penetrates the interior, collapsing the boundary between private space and urban transformation. As the façade is upgraded and aestheticised for the city, the exposed body emerges as a parallel surface: vulnerable, temporal, resistant to polish. The work unfolds at this threshold between inner life and external restructuring.

REFLEX

Artists: Tomas Colbengtson, Grethe Irene Einarsen, Camilla Figenschou, Hanne Grieg Hermansen, Dan Lestander, Trygve Luktvasslimo, Camille Norment, Ina Otzko, Sonja Siltala and Bjørn Tore Stavang.

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

Commissioned for solo exhibition at Galleri Backer, Vestfold University, Tønsberg 2011, presented at The North Norwegian Art Centre BlackBox 2012.

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

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.

TRE: Flyt | Bevegelse | Rytme

Solo Exhibition ArtBase Helgeland 66N, 2022: Photography, video, neon

A Handful (series) photographs 60 cm x 80 cm / Editions 3+1 AP

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

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.