Friday Forum #2: Scenographic Thinking

The evening’s program consists of a conversation with each artist, where we open up for dialogue, and we end the evening with a group discussion. The bar will be open, and there will be light refreshments and snacks. Everyone in the performing arts field, as well as interested audience members, are warmly welcome to the seminar!

If we look at art as a unique way of understanding the world – and our place within it – we can also regard it as a form of reflection: an action, a way of “thinking with,” a practice that involves the whole body, or a shared process of thought. This form of understanding is not necessarily what today’s society would call rational, logical, or easy to put into words. Yet artistic reflection remains one of humanity’s rare tools, capable of opening entirely new territories, new approaches, and new perspectives – precisely because it does not follow established patterns, obey rules, or demand proof.

In Norway, scenographers have emerged who not only contribute to the productions of others but also create their own works – performances and installations – where scenographic strategies serve as tools for research and exploration of the world. Here, thinking through space, material, and form is central.

While the country’s last scenography program faces the threat of closure, we gather to examine the work of Signe Becker, Fredrik Floen, and Jakob Oredsson, and to discuss some of the fundamental questions of scenography: How do these artists think? How do they explore and inhabit the world? What is spatial, material, and visual thinking, and what kinds of relationships can it create?

The seminar is led by dramaturg and curator Sodja Lotker, with academic contributions from professor Joslin McKinney. The event will be held in English.

PARTICIPANTS

● Sodja Zupanc-Lotker teaches dramaturgy and is head of the Master’s program at DAMU KALD in Prague. She completed her master’s studies in directing and dramaturgy at DAMU and earned a doctorate in spatial dramaturgy from the University of Vienna, ZHdK – Zurich University of the Arts, and the Theatre Academy in Prague. She works as a dramaturg for independent theater, dance, and installation projects. From 2008 to 2015 she was artistic director of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, and she was one of the lead researchers in the Costume Agency project at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2018–2021). She has lectured and led workshops at institutions including Columbia University, Yale School of Drama, and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her research focuses on the agency of costume, spatial dramaturgy, material practices, devising strategies, and performance as a form of thinking.

● Joslin McKinney is a researcher and teacher of scenography at the University of Leeds, with a background as a scenographer and costume designer. In 2008 she completed a practice-based PhD on how scenography communicates with audiences, and established the master’s program in Performance Design in 2014. She has chaired the jury at the Prague Quadrennial (2015) and published widely on scenographic research methods, materiality, and audience experience. McKinney is co-author of The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (2009) and Expanded Scenography (2017), and is currently working on the book Scenographic City (2027).

● Signe Becker is a visual artist working within a diverse and interdisciplinary field. Her projects encompass collaborative theater and dance productions as well as personal artistic works such as spatial installations, performances, and sculptures – often with textiles as a starting point, where the encounter with other elements seeks to breathe new life into the works. A sculptural pair of trousers comes alive when meeting a body, and a textile wall painting is animated and transformed into a twisting mass. Her works emerge through an intuitive and performative approach to materials, driven by a need to respond critically to the times and the world we live in – and to the role of the artist – expressed both through her own presence in certain works and through her alter ego, the ever-shifting character Cynthia. Becker holds a bachelor’s degree in scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy (2006), a master’s degree in visual communication from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2008), and a doctorate from the same institution with the project Made Life – Staged objects and a staged self. She has been nominated seven times for the Hedda Award as Scenographer of the Year.

● Fredrik Floen is an artist and designer working at the intersection of experimental clothing and costume design. His practice spans media such as textiles, performance, books, scenography, drawing, and sculpture, and he is an associate professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, where he leads the bachelor’s program in clothing and costume. Floen’s work is characterized by a vibrant yet melancholic world and a colorful maximalist expression that explores themes of self-sabotage, human fallibility, and visual culture. His works have been presented at institutions such as the Munch Museum, Black Box Theatre, Palais de Tokyo, and Stockholm City Theatre, and in 2023 he represented Norway at the Prague Quadrennial. Through flamboyant reactions to existing structures, he seeks to create new forms and dramaturgies, with a desire to situate his work outside traditional production platforms. This approach opens space for exploration and reimagining of silhouettes and ideas within experimental fashion and performance design.

● Jakob Oredsson is an artist, architect, and scenographer, and currently an associate professor at the Norwegian Theatre Academy (NTA) / Østfold University College. After completing a bachelor’s degree in scenography at NTA, he studied architecture at The Cooper Union and Pratt Institute in New York, and earned a master’s degree in architecture at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Oredsson has realized works internationally in public spaces, galleries, and theater contexts, and works across various media. His works seek to engage directly with the existing environment in its concrete form, aiming to challenge binary oppositions such as art–context, form–content, active–passive, and culture–nature, by highlighting ambiguity and embracing a flat ontology.

Friday Forum is a professional seminar series in which Black Box teater delves into current themes within the performing arts. A few times a year, we bring together artists, professionals, and audiences for lectures, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions, with room for both in-depth discussion and informal conversation. The forum will be filmed for internal use.