The Axis
Places We Meet - Art in Public Spaces
Stavanger, 2025-2026
The Axis is the largest and most comprehensive art project within Places We Meet – Art in Public Spaces.
The project is based on the triangular area stretching from the edge of the city center at Peder Klows Gate/Furras Gate in Våland, with views up to Vålandstårnet, down to Mosvannsparken, and further to the neighborhood around Sirevågsbakken. Rather than pointing to specific locations within this area, we wish to view the entire axis as a potential. In this way, we do not limit the commission to a specific site, material, or expression, but instead open a space of possibilities for developing artistic concepts.
A prerequisite is that aspects concerning use, safety, and accessibility are considered. Any interventions in regulated squares and street environments will be planned in dialogue with the relevant road authorities.
The site’s movements, history, usage, and diverse users form a context that the artists implicitly have to relate to. We do not wish to impose thematic guidelines beyond this. The project may result in one or more artistic interventions – physical, social, or conceptual – that engage in dialogue with the site and its users. It should ideally open for new interpretations, encounters, and experiences.
We seek to engage artists who work in a process-based and conceptual manner, and who can address both the overall vision and the finer details. Artists who are capable of interdisciplinary thinking and who can develop projects in dialogue with the site and those who move through the axis – whether commuters, families with children, walkers, the elderly, students, or people on their way to and from the city center.
We aim to invite a selection of four national and international artists or artist groups to a closed competition, each of whom we believe can bring very different perspectives to the axis as a place and context. The selection will be based on thorough research conducted by the Art Consultants in consultation with the Art Committee. The open and process-oriented nature of the project requires artists who can work conceptually and relationally, and who have experience with public art and/or complex contexts. The selected artists are presented to the Art Committee in the municipality art through this art program. The artists will participate in a joint site visit, and each submit a detailed and compensated sketch proposal. The proposals will be evaluated by the art committee. The goal is to enter a contract with the selected artist by the end of 2025, making it possible to apply for additional production funding through KORO’s Local Community Scheme (LOK).
The artists who are to participate in The Axis are Sans façon (FR/UK), Tiril Hasselknippe (NO) and Camille Norment (US).
Sans façon is an artistic collaboration between Charles Blanc (b. 1974, France) and Tristan Surtees (b. 1977, UK) who resides between Canada and UK. The duo works interdisciplinary and process orientated and their practice is characterised by a deep interest of how humans experience and shape public spaces.
Tiril Hasselknippe (b. 1984, Norway) is an artist who lives and works in Stavanger. Hasselknippe is working at the intersection between sculpture, architecture and installation. Her work is often characterised by a post-industrial aesthetic with use of materials such as concrete, fiberglass and metal, referring to psychical as well as mental landscapes.
Camille Norment (b. 1970, United States of America) is an artist and composer living and working in Oslo. Norment has an interdisciplinary practice including sound, installation, performance and text. She is known for using sound not only as an auditory phenomenon but as an architectural and emotional material.
We are looking forward to experience the artists’ work which will be shown as part of the permanent project The Axis in The Places We Meet - Art in Public Spaces.