Anne-Lise Stenseth wins the Coast Contemporary prize 2020

It is with great pleasure that we announce Anne-Lise Stenseth to be the winner of the Coast Contemporary Prize 2020. The prize is awarded to an artist who opens their studio during the festival. Following the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) we had to cancel this year’s Oslo Open – but decided to carry on with the award.

The jury consisted of curator and Oslo Open board member Therese Möllenhoff from the Astrup Fearnley museum and Tanja Sæter, director of Coast Contemporary and the prize consisted of participation in this year’s Coast Contemporary exhibition. The exhibition is on display throughout October 18th 2020 (thursday – sunday).

Anne-Lise Stenseth contributes to the exhibition with the work Suspended Dust. HD video, 25 min. (2015):

A woman starts roaming around after her grave and remains are moved from one place to another in the Kukia Cemetery in Tbilisi, Georgia. The woman is the Norwegian writer Dagny Juel Przybyzewska (1867-1901), who was shot to death in a hotel room in Tbilisi by an admirer in 1901. Through a dreamlike, female voiceover she reflects on her past and present life, male acquaintances such as Edvard Munch and August Strindberg, and her husband the Polish writer Stanislaw Przybyzewski. She has a growing desire to visit her childhood home. That proves to be problematic.

Stenseth studied at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and Oslo National Academy of the Arts, as well as Creative Writing at The Arctic University of Norway/UiT and graduated in 1993.

Selected exhibitions include Museum Folkwang, Germany, Tent, Rotterdam, Liverpool Biennial, Stensersen Museum and Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Norway, Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway, Depo, Istanbul, Gothenburg City Museum, Sweden, Tbilisi History Museum Karvasla, Georgia and in countries including Lebanon, Kosovo, Argentina, Russia, France, Ukraine, China and Australia.