The Oslo Open Honorary Award

2024

This year’s honorary award goes to Graham Hayward and Fellesverkstedet

With this year’s Honorary Award, Oslo Open wishes to honour Fellesverkstedet and their general manager Graham Hayward, for the work they do to create a unique and inclusive arena for the production of art.

Oslo Open’s chairwoman Katinka Maraz announced the recipients of the honorary award at the Oslo Open opening party and award ceremony at Kunstnernes Hus, Thursday 25 April, 2024.

This year’s statuette has been created by Anaclara Talento & Eduardo Scaramuzza, commissioned by the artist network Verdensrommet – last year’s honorary award recipient.

This is the board’s statement:

Oslo’s art scene is one of a kind. One of the things that has made it unique is how artistic production has always had a place alongside galleries and museums, right in the city centre. We now see that this is under threat and that many artists are emigrating, moving both their home and their workplace. This year’s award winners do a lot to maintain the production of art in Oslo, by creating an exemplary arena for shared production. They are a non-profit organization with one purpose: to give artists, self-employed people and other creatives access to professional conditions of production. It is a new way of thinking about workshops and development. They are also a centre of competence that passes on craftsmanship and material knowledge on a non-commercial basis. Approximately 1,150 active artists live in Oslo, many of whom show their works all over Norway and internationally. That is why it is important that Oslo artists have spaces where they can produce and create new works.

Fellesverkstedet organize over 600 such productions each year. We hope this inspires others to think in new ways and that Fellesverkstedet will be a long-lasting institution in Oslo.

Graham Hayward is the general manager and driving force behind the project, but we know that there are many who are involved and we want to show through this award that we support Fellesverkstedet wholeheartedly. We are encouraged by the aggressive way in which they have acquired their own building and the new thinking around sustainable artistic arenas for shared production and ownership. Oslo Open’s board stresses that this is particularly important at a time when studios and workspaces are disappearing not only from the city centre, but from all of Oslo, on an unprecedented scale.

Congratulations to Graham Hayward and Fellesverkstedet!

Katinka Maraz (chair of the board)
Ida Lykken Ghosh (board member)
Olaf Tønnesland Hodne (board member)
Tord K. R. Krogtoft (board member)
Mathilde Carbel (board member)
Karen Lidal (board member)
Julie Skarland (deputy board member)
Sayed S. Hasan (deputy board member)

2023

Verdensrommet received the Honorary Award 2023

With this award, the Oslo Open board wishes to honour, recognize and draw attention to the important work that the voluntary network Verdensrommet does for artists from all over the world who seek to establish themselves in Norway.

The award itself, a hand coloured silk scarf, was created by Magdalena Kotkowska who is one of the artists at Atelier Kunstnerforbundet, which is last years recipient.

The award was announced at the Oslo Open opening party and award ceremony at Kunstnernes Hus 22 April 2023, and given out by the board members:

Trond Hugo Haugen (chair of the board)
Katinka Maraz
Olaf Tønnesland Hodne
Ida Lykken Ghosh
Tord Karstein Rønning Krogtoft

2022

The Oslo Open Honorary Award 2022 goes to Atelier Kunstnerforbundet.

This year’s recipient was announced at the Oslo Open opening party, 22 April at Kunstnernes Hus, and the award was given out by the Oslo Open board. The award itself was created by last year’s recipients, Tenthaus, and takes the form of a discursive dinner, as well as a serving plate, designed by the Tenthaus artists.

With this award, the board wishes to honour Atelier Kunstnerforbundet for taking the significant initiative to create a new studio program within the framework of and established art institution, that is Kunstnerforbundet.

The board congratulates Atelier Kunstnerforbundet with the award!

Trond Hugo Haugen (chair of the board)
Eline Mugaas
Hanna Roloff
Therese Möllenhoff

2021

The Oslo Open Honorary Award 2021 goes to Tenthaus

The award was given out by the city council member Omar Samy Gamal (SV) together with chairman of the board Trond Hugo Haugen and director Marthe Elise Stramrud. The prize itself was created by artist Anne-Lise Stenseth. We also took the opportunity to hand out the award for last year’s winner, Janne Talstad, as her award ceremony was postponed due to the pandemic.

The art collective Tenthaus has 13 members: Ebba Moi, Ida Uvaas, James Finucane, Hamza Mohamed, Helen Eriksen, Matilde Balatti, Mechu Rapela, Meera M Kaur, Nikhil Vettukatil, Shahrzad Malekian, Stan D´Haene , Stefan Schröder og Thomas Holth.

If you want to get to know the art collective better you can check out this presentation from Bergen Kunsthall.

The boards motivation:

With this year’s Honorary Award we wished to give some well-deserved attention and recognition to the artist collective Tenthaus for perseverance in their efforts to bring art to the society in general, and young people in particular, throughout the past decade.

There are few, if any, establishments in Oslo that place the atelier in the center of their agenda in the same way as Tenthaus.

Their story also starts in the atelier, or more precisely the need for an atelier. Artist Ebba Moi got the opportunity to take over an empty workshop in the Sinsen elementary school in 2009, and invited Helene Eriksen and Stefan Schröder to join her. On their own initiative they proposed to the school that they could hold workshops for the students for some hours each term. This experience, as well as other projects they made together during the first years, lead to the formal establishment of Tenthaus in 2011. The artists continued with shared ateliers at schools from 2009 to 2013 and they still share an atelier today, at Maridalsveien 3 where Tenthaus has had their permanent base since 2013.

Today Tenthaus is an art collective with fourteen members, including the three original members, who also sit on the board together with Trine Farmen Christensen and Miriam Firesewra Berhane Haile. The managing director is Mechu Rapela.

Tenthaus is often described as a flexible gallery and a space for learning but it can also be seen as a large and moldable atelier, where artists share their practical experience of contemporary art to the youth in the schools of Oslo, arrange exhibitions and workshops, produce a weekly radio program, travel around the country in the mobile atelier platform P1, and publish publications such as the Tenthaus Toolkit – kunstnere i skolen (2016) where they present the artists work in schools.

For 10 years they have brought art into the society as a natural and self-evident ingredient, just as art is and should be, no matter if it’s in a classroom, on Torggata, or in Levanger.

It is also in its place to honour Tenthaus for their strong contribution for a more diverse art field, through creating the first meeting with contemporary art for many young people in Oslo, and through the participation and collaboration with people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

In resemblance to Oslo Open it’s meetings between people that form the core of Tenthaus. It’s clear that this year of closed schools, and strict restrictions on who and how we can meet, have been challenging for an institution such as Tenthaus, that is so closely linked to interpersonal meetings.

The board of Oslo Open hopes that this prize can be a little inspiration to endure – until we can meet again.
We congratulate!

The Board of Oslo Open – April 2021

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The decision on the winner was made unanimously at the board meeting on the 17th of March 2021 by:

Trond Hugo Haugen (chairman of the board)
Tora Endestad Bjørkheim (deputy chairman)
Eline Mugaas
Lars Sture
Therese Möllenhoff

Video from the award ceremony outside Tenthaus on Maridalsveien 3 with chairman of the board Trond Hugo Haugen, last year’s winner Janne Talstad, city council member Omar Samay Gamal, Ebba Moi og Shahrzad Malekian. Filmed by Adriana Calderon

2020

Oslo Open was arranged for the first time in 2000 and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020! The award marked the anniversary by highlighting the foundation for all display, mediation, sales, and conversation about art, namely the artist and their studio. The board decided to give the award to one of the artists who had participated in Oslo Open the most times. The five nominated artists had opened their studios for the city’s residents year after year, shed light on both their own artistic practice as well as the importance of the artist’s place of work.

Oslo Open is made possible each year by artists who generously open up their studios. Oslo Open is completely dependent on their trust and commitment. Without the artists, there would be no Oslo Open.

We counted and found five artists who had all participated in Oslo Open 11 times and this recurring effort was the reason for the following five nominees: Hanne Ekkeren, Stig Marlon Weston, Ellen Grieg, Manfred Oberbauer and Janne Talstad.

The award was given to Janne Talstad who has contributed to developing the program of Oslo Open since the beginning. She has, among other things, organized a number of group exhibitions in the different studio collectives she has been a part of – Pilestredet, Villa Romsås, and Olav Ryes plass. Since 2015 she has also curated and run the extensive film program Open Video during Oslo Open.

The award was designed by artist Ragnhild Aamås and announced by The Mayor of Oslo, Marianne Borgen through a video greeting from the City Hall Saturday 18th of April 2020.

2019

The Oslo Open Honorary Award was founded and awarded for the first time in 2019. With the first award the board wished to focus on collective thinking and responsibility by shedding light on young artists who contribute new energy to the idea of the collective, the idea of a shared home, a place to share challenges and joy, a place for learning and inspiring each other – a place for work.

The board chose artists who have taken the idea of the studio collective further and opened up completely new spaces to us. Artists who have prioritized the community and seen its value as equal to, or at times even higher than, their own artistic practice. Artists who haven’t received enough recognition for their efforts.

We wanted to bring them into the limelight:
Axel Ekwall, Camilla Luihn, Frode Markhus, Gunnhild Torgersen, Hanna Sjöstrand, Jørund Aase Falkenberg, Solveig Syversen, Svartjord, and True Solvang Vevatne.

The board decided to give the very first Honorary Award to Gunnhild Torgersen and Hanna Sjöstrand for their contribution to Oslo through establishing the studio community CK2 in Christian Krohgs gate 2.

The award was designed by artist Randi Nygård and given out by the Mayor of Oslo, Marianne Borgen, during the opening ceremony for Oslo Open 2019 at Kunstnernes Hus 26th of April.