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Heidi Nikolaisen’s (b. 1973, lives and works in Bergen) work takes the form of experimental expeditions that look into personal narratives, drawing from the artist’s autobiography, as an opposition to the construction of written history. Through these trips the artist herself becomes a vessel of oral history constructed by means of the people who meet and host her. Nikolaisen considers herself a storyteller. In the exhibition space, reconstructed fragments of stories form an elaborate carnet de voyage and attempt to reposition the artist’s own history to more rightly reveal the landscape of entanglement that emerges from the migration of family, labor and identity. Nikolaisen was Assistant Professor at the Bergen National Academy of Arts and her recent and future solo exhibitions include the Nordnorsk Art Centre (Svolvær) in 2011, and By the Way (Bergen). She has also participated in group exhibitions such as "A Place in the Sun" at the County Museum (Murmansk).
Heidi Nikolaisen’s new project utilizes her family’s correspondence and photo albums. The point of departure for this work is a photograph taken in Norway by her grandmother that the artist re-creates from the same angle in the same village. The work was developed during "Le Bout Du Monde - Expédition 8," which led to this village, Engan, in the North Polar Circle. In "We Belong to the Same Tree," Nikolaisen examines notions of family, belonging, immigration, and the ways in which people share history.
This project was developed during Expedition 8 (Le Bout Du Monde) in 2009.
