The Coast Contemporary Prize
Oslo Open and Coast Contemporary have the pleasure to collaborate in awarding a prize to an artist who opens their atelier during Oslo Open.
Viktor Pedersen is the winner of the Coast Contemporary Prize 2022
In collaboration with Coast Contemporary, Oslo Open are happy to award this acknowledgment to the artist Viktor Pedersen. He presented his work during Coast Contemporary October 2022 at Rødbanken in Tromsø.
Viktor Pedersen (b.1988) works interdisciplinary with video, performance, sound, and text. In his artistic practice, he approaches non-human intelligence to look at how we interact with other organisms in conscious and unconscious ways. Through storytelling Pedersen employs the perspectives of different beings—an alien from another dimension, how yeast influences society, or the bacteria in his own body. Through these voices he desires to challenge and play with the idea of human exceptionalism. Pedersen participated in Coast Contemporary 2022 with a screening of the new film To See Without Man. The work is a collaboration with artist Ingrid K. Bjørnaali.
Pedersen received his MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2020, and his BFA from the Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing in Tromsø in 2016. Recent solo exhibitions include Dancing With Dionysos, Galleri Memphis, Oslo (2022) and The Skin, A Border, Studio17, Stavanger (2021). Selected group shows include The Arctic Arts Festival, Harstad (2021), and Høstutstillingen, Oslo (2020 and 2022). He is the founder and organiser of the platform Wild Seeds. Pedersen lives and works in Oslo.
The jury consisted of Therese Möllenhoff, Director of the Canica collection, and Tanja Sæter, founder of Coast Contemporary.
About the prize
Coast Contemporary is a platform for art and dialogue that aims to give artists based in Norway visibility in the international art field, and to create exhibition and work opportunities for art workers. The Coast Contemporary Prize is an annual award that was established in 2018 as a collaboration between Coast Contemporary and Oslo Open to highlight the important artists who open their studios to the public during Oslo Open. The aim is to call attention to the value of open studios, the visibility of artists in the city, and artistic work as well as the significance of having studios and good working conditions for artists in the city.
The prize consists of participation and a presentation during Coast Contemporary during the same year. Travel, accommodation, food, production costs, and an artist fee is a part of the prize.
During Coast Contemporary the artist gets to meet professionals of the field based both in Norway and abroad as they gather to experience the artistic program. The program consists of performance, talks, presentations, films, exhibitions, debates, and guided tours from Lofoten in the north, on board of the Hurtigruten boat, and on land in Trondheim and Bergen. During the exceptional year of 2020 the program took place on Hovedøya in the Oslofjord.
2020: Anne-Lise Stenseth
Despite the unfortunate cancellation of Oslo Open due to Covid-19 the Coast Contemporary Prize was still awarded in 2020. The winner was Anne-Lise Stenseth.
Anne-Lise Stenseth (b.1959 in Florø) 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.
During Coast Contemporary 2020 on Hovedøya she showed the film Suspended Dust which represents the starting point of her investigation of the conditions for the role of the female around the turn of the 19th century.
The jury consisted of Astrup Fearnley curator and Oslo Open board member Therese Möllenhoff and Tanja Sæter, founder of Coast.
2019: Ragnhild Aamås
The winner of the Coast Contemporary Prize 2019 was artist Ragnhild Aamås.
Ragnhild Aamås (b. 1984, Volda) lives and works in Oslo. Aamås is educated at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design (London), the University of Oslo and the Academy of Fine Art at the Oslo Academy of the Arts (Khio).
The price winner was presented with an outdoor performance and reading, as well as sculptures and outdoor installations, during Coast Contemporary 2019 which took place in Molde, Håholmen and Bergen.
The jury consisted of artist and chair of Oslo Open, Trond Hugo Haugen, artist Sverre Gullesen and founder Tanja Sæter, co-curators of the third edition.
2018: Randi Nygård
The winner of the first Coast Contemporary Prize in 2018 was artist Randi Nygård.
Randi Nygård (b.1977) often uses facts from nature and social sciences as a point of departure for her work. She is interested in connections that are invisible, arbitrary or irrational, and the visual representation of these. She holds an MFA from the Art Academy of Trondheim.
The winner participated in Coast Contemporary 2018 in the form of an artist talk with Timotheus Vermeulen.
The jury consisted of artist and chair of Oslo Open, Trond Hugo Haugen, Coast advisory board member, author, and art critic Timotheus Vermeulen, and founder of Coast, Tanja Sæter.