Knut Åsdam

A several year long episodic film production titled 'Oslo'. The feature film will be premiered periodically in ‘episodes’ on screens installed in places of transit across the city. The first sequence was shown in Løren and Tøyen subway station, and in a butcher shop in Grønland Bazar shopping center in 2019. A second sequence will be added in the winter of 2021.

Biography

Knut Åsdam (b. 1968) is a filmmaker, artist and writer. Åsdam studied at Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (NYC 94-95), Jan van Eyck Akademie (Maastricht, 92-94), Goldsmiths College (London, 89-92), and other institutions. Through cinema, video and installation, Åsdam’s work looks at contemporary society, its psychological and material effects, and the toll of everyday life; e.g. how individuals adjust their identity and desires in reaction to the rules and organization of contemporary society.

The idiosyncrasy of Åsdam’s films is created by drawing attention to space, history and place in film, combining this with an acute sense of subjectivity and language and a mix of documentary and fictional narrative elements that drive the plot.

'Oslo' at Tøyen Subway station. Photo by Asle Olsen

Click here to read more about the new sequence in Oslo, that launches in the winter of 2021.

Essay

Aina Villanger is a poet and writer. She has published several books since her debut in 2012.
In 2019, she was awarded the Stig Sæterbakken’s Memorial Award.

In the following text, she approaches Knut Åsdam’s film project Oslo through conversations and an email exchange with the artist, fragments from the screenplay, studio visits, and observation of a day’s filming.

Read the essay here:
FILM-MAKING FRAGMENTS