October 17–December 5, 2015
Oslo Pilot is pleased to announce two new year-long projects championing the power of poetic language: Cycle Wording—New Editorial Line, a publication project, and The Word’s Head, the inaugural presentation in Oslo Pilot’s Project Room.
Oslo Pilot seeks to examine the potential of poetic language to enrich, abstract, and provoke thinking around the Project’s four lines of enquiry—Reactivation, Periodicity, Disappearance, and Public—and their underlying relationships to time. Poetry in and for the public sphere is marked by a powerful history of resistance, reclamation and critique. The semi-autonomous spaces carved out by inventive, subversive or charged uses of language present unique positions from which reflective engagement and intervention can play out. By making poetry a cornerstone of its working process, Oslo Pilot strives to give space and voice to local and international poets alike to inform new vocabularies for production in the public realm.
Cycle Wording—New Editorial Line
Dedicated exclusively to poetic text, Cycle Wording—New Editorial Line is a forthcoming series of publications edited by curators Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk. This initiative seeks to create a discursive space parallel to Oslo Pilot’s principal modes of communication and research, opening the project to new directions and interpretations. An Editorial Board composed primarily of poets has been invited to determine the shape, regularity, and distribution channels of this editorial project.
The Editorial Board of Cycle Wording—New Editorial Line is comprised of eight members: Aina Villanger (Norway), Erling Kittelsen (Norway), Gunnar Wærness (Norway), Juris Kronbergs (Latvia/Sweden), Knut Åsdam (Norway), Monica Aasprong (Norway), Sigbjørn Skåden (Norway) and Rob Stone (UK).
The Word’s Head
The first of a series of upcoming presentations in Oslo Pilot’s Project Room, The Word’s Head is a collection of poetic texts that circle and elaborate Oslo Pilot’s key research concepts in poignant and oblique ways. Featuring 24 poets from Scandinavia and beyond, this expansive project will unfold in three stages over the course of one year.
The Word’s Head launches with a month-long installation of poetic texts printed on Oslo Pilot’s Risograph printer, an independent publishing tool that will be used throughout the course of 2015 and 2016 to produce various editorial projects. These texts will also be available to the public as individual takeaways from the space during this time.
The second stage of the project will comprise a series of performances and readings exploring the intersection of poetry and the live event. These events will take place throughout the one-month span of the presentation in the Project Room and will culminate with a launch event for The Word’s Head catalogue on December 5.
The final stage of the project moves the texts out of the Project Room and into the public realm. For 11 months following the initial presentation, each work will be distributed through various facets of the public sphere including city walls, newspapers, and social media.
The poets featured in this project were selected by, and include contributions from, the members of the Editorial Board of Oslo Pilot’s Cycle Wording — New Editorial Line in conjunction with the curators of Oslo Pilot.
Participating poets include: a rawlings (Canada/Iceland), Aina Villanger (Norway), Ane Nydal (Norway), Ann Jäderlund (Sweden), Ariana Reines (US), Colin Browne (Canada), Eduardo C. Corral (US), Erling Kittelsen (Norway), Gunnar Wærness (Norway), Guntars Godiņš (Latvia), He Dong (China), Jamshed Masroor (Pakistan), Jordan Abel (Canada), Juris Kronbergs (Latvia/Sweden), Liāna Langa (Latvia), Linda Klakken (Norway), Monica Aasprong (Norway), Morten Wintervold (Norway), Sigbjørn Skåden (Norway), Siri Katinka Valdez (Norway), Synnøve Persen (Norway), Terje Thorsen (Norway) and Victoria Kielland (Norway).
Oslo Pilot is a two-year research-based project investigating the role of art in and for the public realm. Developed by curators Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk in response to an invitation from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, this experimental initiative lays the ground for a future art biennial in the city of Oslo.
