Tori Wrånes

is the 2025 Festival Exhibition artist

Tori Wrånes, a renowned multidisciplinary artist and vocalist based in Oslo, is celebrated for her inventive and immersive artistic practice, which unfolds as performance, sculptures, film or installations.

Born in Kristiansand, her work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions, including the Performa in New York (2013), Sydney Biennale (2014), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo (2017), the Thailand Biennale (2018), the Bangkok Art Biennale (2020) and more recently, in Helsinki Art Museum in 2024.

Her use of sounds, musical instruments, costumes, props, architecture, and sculptures deforms her appearance and creates new rituals and dreamlike constellations. Her background in both music, theatre and visual arts gives her a bold freedom in mixing different art forms and this craft complexity is the force behind her total installations. Her voice and soundscapes are integral to the narratives she builds, often conveying emotion and meaning in ways that transcend language. A recurring theme in her work is the exploration of alternative realities and the ways in which identity, body, and space interact within these constructed worlds.

– Tori Wrånes is a force of nature in the world of contemporary art, blending performance, visual art, and music into immersive experiences that defy categorization. Her work is a deep dive into the performative possibilities of corporeality, where she adopts and discards identities with an almost chameleonic fluidity. With a unique blend of humor, warmth and darkness, she distorts reality through her holistic approach, pushing it beyond cultural norms and standards. Tori describes her work as an effort to 'rearrange the world to create more freedom', a mission that resonates strongly in an era where human relationships with other life forms are being re-evaluated to imagine a different and better world, says Silja Leifsdottir, curator of exhibitions at Bergen Kunsthall.

For the upcoming exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Wrånes will create a large-scale installation, transforming the space into a unique form of scenography. Sculptures in the exhibition will play a central role in shaping the narrative of the installation, acting as both objects and performers within the space. We believe the exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall will be a captivating experience, offering audiences a glimpse into Wrånes’ distinctive artistic vision, where the extraordinary meets the everyday.

– We're very proud to present Tori Wrånes as the artist for the Festival Exhibition 2024! Tori Wrånes is one of the most original artists on the art scene, operating between exhibition space and theatre stage (and everything in-beween). We are proud to show a new extensive project, seven years after her milestone exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art – now Nasjonalmuseet – in Oslo in 2017. We are really excited to see what Tori will make happen for the Festival Exhibition 2024!, says Axel Wieder, director Bergen Kunsthall (2017–2024).

About the artist

Recent solo shows are Big Water at Helsinki Art Museum, Finland (2024), Accelerator, Stockholm, (2022), Mussel Tears at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery, Los Angeles (2022), Garden og Lefthand, Lilith Performance Studio, Malmö (2022). Others are Handmade Acoustics (2018) at Ujazdowski Castle for Contemporary Art in Warszawa; Tori Wrånes at Göteborg Konstmuseum (2019); Hot Pocket (2017) at Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Ancient Baby (2017), Kunsthal Charlottenborg Denmark; Flute Warriors (2017), w/Red Comunitaria Trans, Bogotà, Colombia; Drastic Pants (2016), Carl Freedman Gallery London.

Commissioned performances are Stone and Singer (2014), 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Yes Nix (2013), Performa 13 New York; Naam Yai (2018), Thailand Biennale. When you think you know me you have to rethink in collaboration with Ayodeji Adewale Yaro, Lagos Biennalen, Nigeria. She has shown at Colombo Art Biennale, Sri Lanka; Dhaka Art Seminars, Dhaka Bangladesh; CCA Lagos, Nigeria; The Eccentrics, Sculpture Center, New York. In the winter of 2019 Wrånes developed an underwater performance in the Arctic called Sub Adventure, a commission for the Ilios festival. At Garage in Moscow, Russia in 2019, Wrånes developed a score for 40 accordion players in the performance Lips don't cry as part of the show The coming World.

The Festival Exhibition

The Festival Exhibition is Bergen Kunsthall's flagship exhibition, established in 1953. Each summer, Bergen Kunsthall present a large-scale exhibition with new work by a Norwegian artist, in connection with the Bergen International Festival (Festspillene i Bergen). The exhibition is considered the most important solo presentation for a Norwegian artist in their home country and creates a national debate about the state of the art, similar to the Turner Prize in the UK.

Recent Festival Exhibition artists include Gardar Eide Einarsson (2013), Ane Hjort Guttu (2015), Joar Nango (2020), Elisabeth Haarr (2021), Lene Berg (2022), Camille Norment (2023) and Toril Johannessen (2024).