CURATING CONTEMPORARY ART & DESIGN SINCE 2006

BIODEEP MAP PROGRAM 2023
Bio Deep Map is an original exploratory method tool that focuses on the potential of bioresources in material-based art and is developed in a collaborative program with artistic research-based activities. Expert competence across crafts, art and design together with scientific expertise, produce new knowledge for a new and more sustainable materiality. The project includes the development of a method and program for deep mapping of bioresources for artistic exploration and innovative material development.

ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTORS Julia Lohmann, Silje Klepsvik, Tone Berge, Linda Figueiredo, Birgitta Ralston, Alexandre Bau, Blandine Zaba, Surzhana Ravinda, Cômo di Maglio, Siv Støldal, Norwegian west coast artists and handcraft artists, Johannes O. Borge, Weronika Nitsch, Jeanett Goodwin.FUNDED BY: Arts & Culture Norway.

FULL MOONS BIO TALKS 2023
Full Moons are monthly gatherings connecting art, design and industry, aiming to increase knowledge about resource utilization of biomaterials and to build a strong interdisciplinary competence environment in our region. The premises of Bioregion Institute and Ralston Bau studio in Bergen are used as dedicated arena for artists, designers, industry players, academia and research to stimulate collaboration, network building and skills development. Expert competence across art and design fields, together with scientific research and industry, are invited to participate and present at each full moon. Through the programme, we shed light on cutting-edge expertise and exciting projects, and highlight the potential of sustainable materiality.

ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTORS Kåre Grundvåg, Julia Lohmann, Surzhana Ravinda, Cômo di Maglio.
FUNDED BY Bioregion Institute, City of Bergen.

BYHAV PROJECT 2023
The zero-emission society requires radical change and restructuring in the way the city consumes, produces and uses energy. In order to achieve the climate goals and preserve biodiversity, regional organic resources must be utilized in a way that restores their natural ecosystems. In a bioregional approach, the food systems and material flows, both below and above the city of Bergen sea's surface, are mapped and explored in a new materiality. Byhav (Citysea) will close the seafood loop using algea and shells to prototype installations beneficial to Bergens natural ecosystem.

ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTORS Silje Klepsvik, Tone Berge, Linda Figueiredo, Birgitta Ralston, Alexandre Bau.

FUNDED BY Norwegian Institute for Water research, Bioregion Institute, City of Bergen.

IDEALIST INSTITUTE PROGRAM SINCE 2017
The Idealist Institute is an open organisation, that direct an Idealist way of considering art, design and life in a society in constant mutation. Joined by a desire to bring about solutions to societal challenges, the institute shapes necessary and collective dreams for the environmental and people’s social well being. We are citizens, institutions and companies, that collaborate across artistic, design and organisational boarders, to make ideal inclusive futures happen, within our own ever evolving fields and local contexts.

Four art and design projects have been curated and developed by Ralston Bau from 2010 until today: Kunstsone (Artzone), Kunstsone Nesttun, Alibi to meet, Wilde Werft Park and Enchanted esplanade.

KUNSTSONE NESTTUN ART IN PUBLIC SPACE 2022-2024
The departure point for the Kunstsone (zone of art) Nesttun that will link what is locally produced to a new form and function that will give place to diverse interaction that contribute to the development of the local youth culture.. This locally anchored project is placed in a larger perspective; in time (present and future), geography (urban, regional and national biodiversity) and imagination (expansion of the space of opportunity). The installation(s) are created as open works, which can be transformed, built on and reactivated and thus define and redefine the local environment over time.

ARTISTS Birgitta Ralston, Alexandre Bau, Maria Almås FrantzenGRANTS KORO national funding art in public space, The City of Bergen, Artists production fund.

KUNSTSONE ARTISTIC PILOT 2020-2022
“Kunstsone” is a pilot that testing different types of collaboration and implementation, with the main purpose of learning how to create transformable art zones in different local urban context. The “art zone” must be an attitude-creating and diverse climate action that will contribute to the development of the current local culture.

CONTRIBUTORS Gitte Sætre, Liama Nomeikaite, Eva González-Sancho Bodero.

GRANTS Arts & Culture Norway, KORO national funding art in public space.

ALIBI DE RENCONTRE INSTALLATION 2019
The Alibi is a vegetal kiosk, an alibi for meeting and sharing the essential know-how we need to succeed the ecological transition. The Alibi invites us to teach or (re)learn sustainable gestures and techniques; to repair an object to make it last or to share a technique that the industrial age made obsolete, but is essential in our time to define a new modernity. A series of four university workshops producing the Alibi & a public exhibition. Exhibited at Annecy Paysage Art Biennial.

CONTRIBUTORS Dominique Morand, Heidi Malivin, Margaux Stievenart, Constantin Rouget, Silje Tombre, Lina Haveland.

GRANTS CNAC Grenoble, Magasin des Horizons, ESAAA, École Supérieure d'Art Annecy.

WILDE WERFT PARK INSTALLATION 2018
The Wilde Werft Park is a temporary installation tempting to influence the urban planning in NDSM noord area in Amsterdam. From a unused wasteland we made a parc with a beach, camping site and lookout point. We proposed a citizen and creative intervention to explore the uses and actual needs in a community with the final goal to create an ideal village neighbourhood.

CONTRIBUTORS Birgitta Ralston, Thomas Tiel Groenestege And Sophie Mulot, Dr Laurent Chambon.

GRANT CNAC Grenoble, Magasin des Horizons.

ESPLANADE ENCHANTÉE 2018
The ideal territory was our lead subject during the three years as Associated Artists at the MAGASIN des Horizons - CNAC, Grenoble, France. We co-curated the usages and needs of the community around the art centre and shaped installations to activate the public space in front. The Esplanade enchantée was selected as a project to produced in a public call. Workshops, public presentation at the Municipality of Grenoble and selection by the citizens.

GRANT CNAC Grenoble, Magasin des Horizons.

IDEAL LAB PROGRAM 2010-2016
Ideal Lab connects arts, science, sociology and industry with the goal to define needs, provide human results and prototype future scenarios through tangible products and scenarios. Four themes researched in different local contexts: from 2010 to 2014, we developed five themes in collaboration with 52 creative Agents, producing one or more works each. Twelve public workshops were held. The results have received three international design awards and have been presented at 20 biennial, exhibitions, festivals and conferences around Europe.

THEMES 2010 Longer Participation, 2012 Precious Food, 2013 Empathic Home, 2014-15 Replanted Identity, 2016 Tøyen Replanted.

ARTISTS Auger & Loizeau, Charlotte Grum, Ola Hovland, Mathieu Lehanneur, Erwin Olaf, Ralston Bau, Ambra Trotto, Siri Berqvam, Marc Bretillot, Julien Dossier, Bertrand Duplat, Runa Klock, Constance Gaard Kristiansen, Anthony Quinn, Ralston Bau, John Thackara, Jo Zarth. Christophe Berdaguer & Marie Péjus, Cecilie Haaland, Christian Lodegaard, Jeff Pedersen & Idun Losnegård, Miyuki Inoue, Rainer Rosegger, David Brognon & Stéphanie Rollin, Pierre Dubourg, Laurent Chambon, Ralston Bau, Signe Solberg, Anne Lise Stenseth, Vera & Kyte, Mélanie Buatois, Les M Studio, Margit Seland, Øyvind Wyller.

GRANTS Arts Council Norway, Vestland County, Vestland Governor, Norwegian Embassy in Paris, Bergesen foundation, Fjaler & Flora-Oslo municipalities, Institut Français, French Embassy in Oslo.

REPLANTED IDENTITY EXHIBITION 2015-16
The last Ideal Lab theme in the series resulted in an international collaboration between France and Norway recruiting and inviting designers and crafts professionals from both countries. We curated the program and the following exhibition of the creations resulting from the work in-situ in the municipalities of Florø and Saint-Nazaire together with citizens and industries.

The exhibition was shown at international 2016 OAT Associated program / Oslo, Norway, 2016 Galleri Kraft / Bergen, Norway, 2016 Flora Kommune / Florø, Norway, 2015 Cité de la Mode et du Design, Paris, France / Curators, 2015 Le Grand Café / Saint-Nazaire, France, 2015 100% Norway, London, England, 2015 International Biennale of Design Saint-Etienne IN / France.

ARTISTS David Brognon & Stéphanie Rollin, Pierre Dubourg, Laurent Chambon, Ralston Bau, Signe Solberg, Anne Lise Stenseth, Vera & Kyte, Mélanie Buatois, Les M Studio, Margit Seland, Øyvind Wyller.

FUNDED BY Arts Council Norway, Sogn og Fjordane County, Vestland Governor, Norwegian Embassy in Paris, Bergesen foundation, Municipalities of Fjaler, Flora and Oslo, Institut Français, French Embassy in Oslo.

CYCLE OF MUTATION PROGRAM 2006-2009
The cycle of evolution that represented the cycle of life. It contains four themes: “Emergence”, “Growth”, “Maturation” and “Disappearance”. Each theme lasted for six months and influenced everything which happened in our studio during that time such as exhibitions, the store, concerts and other events. Our main reached objective as curators was to create and develop a platform for an international creative scene, that would grow, which it did. Through this platform, our studio has brought people together across national borders, experimented and developed with them new speculative territories and enhanced the dialogue between creative practicionners and manufacturers - a platform to think, discuss and produce.
The speculative ideas generated, works and products of this community have been discussed and exhibited in our spaces and beyond.

THEMES 2006 - 2009: Emergence - 27.09.2007 to 28.02 2008 Growth - 29.02.2008 to 31.08.2008 Maturation - 12.09.2008 to 28.02.2009 Disappearance - 06.03.2009 to 15.08.2009.

PARTICIPANTS Klaus Speidel, Gunilla Åkesson, Martine Linge, Cathy Cat Rastler, Vegard Fimland, Gono Gono, Moriceau & Mrzyk, Patrick Vidal, Laura Annaert, Katrine Sele, Klub7, Paul Lewthwaite, Ralston Bau, Marius Watz, Torsten Illner, Are Mokkelbost, Geneviève Gauckler, Marco Godinho (Luxenburg pavillon Venice 2019), Tomas Espedal, Marlin Barth, Studio Glithero, Sissel Myklebust, Rita Marhaug, May Elin Eikås Bjerk, Béatrice Josse, Monica Bonvicini, Patrick Neu, Michel Blazy, Roman Singer, Mario Garcia Torres, Maia Urstad, Jean Christophe Norman, Klaus Speidel, David Renaud, Fanny Holmin, Marc Bretillot.

FUNDED BY Norwegian Arts Council, Vestland County, Vestland, FRAC Lorraine, Institut Francais Oslo, French Embassy in Norway.