​60 metres of art in Oslo’s Rådhusplassen

The Nobel Peace Center is transforming the construction site safety fence outside the museum into a 60m long artwork. Mare Nostrum – Our Ocean will be a highly topical and eye-catching installation in Rådhusplassen, the open space in front of Oslo’s City Hall.

Pictures of over-loaded inflatable boats wallowing in the Mediterranean waves have filled the news in recent weeks. This issue is now being turned into a thought-provoking work of art, which will be seen by everyone who uses Rådhusplassen in the next few months. The Nobel Peace Center is currently surrounded by a 60m long safety fence, in connection with the construction of the new National Museum nearby. In conjunction with Statsbygg, the organisation that manages Norway’s government-owned properties, the Nobel Peace Center has chosen to turn the fence into an arena for contemporary art, which it has called the Peace Wall.

“The Nobel Peace Center aims to stage topical exhibitions, and we feel that an exhibition about Mediterranean migrants will connect with many people. On a fine day, around 80,000 people cross the square in front of us. By using the safety fence as an exhibition space, we will reach out to a far larger audience than those who visit us inside the museum,” says exhibition manager Liv Astrid Sverdrup.

The public art agency Mesén has been engaged as advisor and curator for the project. The idea for the Mare Nostrum exhibition, called after the Italian operation established in 2013 to rescue migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, was developed by artists Torunn Skjelland and Vigdis Fjellheim.

“The fact that the exhibition site is located right next door to Oslo’s busy harbour certainly inspired us to take on this issue. The disaster is happening now, in the same sea, and it is important to continually remind people that we have a shared moral responsibility to care and to provide assistance. We want to help make sure that what is happening in the Mediterranean is not forgotten, even if the media have turned their attention elsewhere,” they say.

The entire artwork will be painted directly onto the fence. The two artists will set to work during the night before Ascension Day, on Thursday, 14 May. The entire piece will be completed in time for the Nobel Peace Center’s 10th anniversary on Wednesday, 10 June. It will remain in place until March next year, when new artists will take over the Peace Wall outside the old Vestbane railway station that is now home to the Nobel Peace Center.