Knut Åsdam “Oslo”, Ep. 2 SPEECH, (April-June 2021).

How do you make a ‘different’ Oslo film? Visual artist and film-maker Knut Åsdam, at the invitation of osloBIENNALEN, is producing one such film. The expression ‘Oslo film’ is often used to describe long scenes of public spaces in Oslo, where typically well known landmarks play a central role. Åsdam’s film will not be like this. The film will take its starting point in unexpected situations, characters and locations.

Click here to read more about the artist Knut Åsdam.

Shown at Oslo S, Schous Bøker* at Grünerløkka, in the old premises of the kiosk Majoren at Majorstua, and at Tøyen and Nationalthearet subway stations. The film is shown in six episodes of around 4-5 minutes each over a period of six weeks.

Available on several locations from April 23 to June 3, 2021.

SPEECH is about language and deviations and describes, among other things, a therapy situation at a language clinic. The main character is a language pathologist and the film follows her at work and in everyday life and highlights different ways of using language. Åsdam takes situations where the language does not function as a starting point for dialogues that go in and out of function and fiction. The characters in the film communicate through partly dysfunctional language, but a change in context and social context means almost more.

The actors are Birgitte Larsen, Kjersti Dalseide, Manish Sharma and Håkon Mathias Vassvik.

This second chapter is shown in collaboration with Rom for kunst, Schous bøker and Ruter.

*Opening Hours Schous bøker: The episode clip is shown in the window of the bookshop between 12 and 6 pm every day until 12 May when it moved inside the store and follows opening hours all days from 12 to 5 pm.

*Old Majoren Kiosk: Opening Hours are Wed-Fri 2-6 pm and Sat-Sun 12-4 pm (outside opening hours the film are visible through the window)

Shown at Løren and Tøyen Metro Station, as well as at the Greenland Bazaar, in the period week 42—48, 2019 as part of osloBIENNALEN.

In WORK, the background is a world of manual work, with a focus on social working conditions, personal desires for transcendence and change, and the great economic axis that governs the city's everyday life. The main character in the film works as a crane driver at a large depot, but moves through the city in different layers and sees the opportunity she has somewhere up against another.

The actors are Birgitte Larsen, Khalid Mahamoud, Håkon Mathias Vassvik, Eva Johansson and Kyrre Hellum.

Knut Åsdam's five-year film project uses the city, in this case Oslo, as raw material to create a work over time and where time itself is meaningful. He uses elements from the city's many conflicting narratives to enrich his theme of social, political, economic and psychological conditions and conditions in our time. The film is part of a larger project about today's Europe that started with the film Blissed (2005), and has continued with the films Finally (2006), Oblique (2008), Abyss (2010), Tripoli (2010), Egress (2013), and Murmansk Kirkenes (2018).

As a whole, the five-year project is an acute look at our time. Through stories about crises or deviations in different environments in the city, Åsdam explores the relationship between place and room for manoeuvre and how different areas in society are structured. The crises can be of a social or personal nature and the stories are told from underrepresented perspectives in society.

Each chapter is produced at regular intervals over five years and will eventually consist of a feature film in five chapters and a multi-chapter installation. osloBIENNALEN is the producer of the first and second chapters.