BAR DÛ NORD at SHELTER FOR IMAGINATION AND COMMUNITY by Sol&Sten, 2020

Marita Isobel Solberg & Trond Ansten

At Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art during the exhibition SHELTER FOR IMAGINATION AND COMMUNITY, we dissoled the Art Association and its components, and made an interactive installation for a burndown of the concept of time and common perseption.

A BAR, A TIME MACHINE, A SCREENING ROOM, A MUSEUM? THE ART ASSOCIATION´S LAST PLACE OF RESIDENCE?

After the recession in the 2050s, people started talking again about the fashionable hotel that burned down in 1871, which had provided fertile ground for both the Art Association and the City Museum. Brewing fish and sniffing the northern lights came back into vogue, but where exactly had the association gone? Is it here- now? What is certain is that everyone is waiting for the big Tromsø exhibition in 2070. In one of the house's dusty studios, the owners are still looking for the fishing equipment of the old painter Idar Ingebrigtsen, while we wonder why the public expects
the art to make sense.

In the art association's main room, the entrance to the venerable BAR DÛ NORD is shown in Holmboe's project sketch of the city from 1878, via-à-vis Elverhøy cemetery.

At BAR DÛ NORD you will get to know The Brewing Fish, a little-known Tromsø fish that was once released into Prestevannet, to purify the drinking water for the city's residents. We give you a whole range of treats for your body and mind and our very own magazine LYS DÛ NORD, where you get the latest updates on the past, present and future. Come by to see, smell, get yourself a sup, a shot, a sniff or a touch. Dissolution of time is our specialty.

“A bronze-coloured, alcohol-producing freshwater fish is quietly indicative of this autumn's exhibition. An aquarium with three swimming specimens of the Crucian Carp forms both a physical part of Marita Isobel Solberg and Trond Ansten's performative installation Bar du nord – the exhibition's experimental basement bar – at the same time that the fish's funny characteristics, extraordinary survival ability and historical connection to the city of Tromsø make it symbolic for the art association and the building that houses it.

To the right of the main entrance, a small staircase leads down to a room, which has long been unused - and into the future. BAR DÜ NORD, by Marita Isobel Solberg and Trond Ansten, is a performative installation in the form of a bar, set in 2050 and depression times. The name is taken from the story of Northern Norway's first hotel, Hotel Du Nord, which in the 1820s was the city's cultural elite hub with brewing and spirit production before it burned down in 1871. And it is with the spirit production and the historical layer that the Crucian Carp comes into the picture. In the corner of the barely ten square meter room, surrounded by draped, dark velour, stands a two meter high bar counter. Through a hatch, guests are offered a sniff of the northern lights, raw cocoa capsules and very low-alcohol drinks - "Crucian-brew". It takes a bit to understand all the elements and layers, but the weekly newspaper "Lys du nord" that you can take with you from the bar helps guests on their way. There you can read about "The brewing fish", released in Prestvannet at the top of Tromsøya in the 19th century to purify the drinking water. The Crucian Carp, imported from China, is one of the few fish species that survives the water that freezes at the bottom in winter, because it produces its own alcohol which it also secretes into the environment making a "cocktail" of the water, and thus supposedly very light alcohol drinks for the time machine bar.”

-Astrid Fadnes / HAKAPIK netmagasin

Photos by: Mihály Stefanovicz / Trond Ansten / Marita Isobel Solberg