The exhibition is a comprehensive installation consisting of films, sound pieces, videos, and images. In Near Space, Perlin has divided the gallery into two levels: the underground and the stratosphere.

Downstairs, the light is orange. Subterranean space. Visitors can watch short films Perlin made during the years she was producing her feature film BUNKER (showing at Vega during the exhibition periode). These short films, made between 2018-2021, respond to stories, interviews, and encounters with subterranean space in literature, history, and contemporary life. The films are shot on 16mm film and digital video. They have a range of styles, from essay films and animations to experimental documentaries. 

Upstairs, visitors enter a space of blue. Here, Perlin will be presenting current work (2023-24) based on her artistic research into imaginaries and explorations of the stratosphere, an area outside Earth’s atmosphere, but not yet outer space. Visitors will experience photographs, video, 16mm film, listen to audio, and see results of the artist’s own stratospheric balloon experiments.

In Near Space, Perlin employs colors and ROM's architecture to create an exhibition incorporating the below and the above, spaces that resist, spaces with their own flows, systems, and stories. The exhibition is designed to encourage imagination, exploration, and curiosity. 

During the exhibition period, you will have several opportunities to see Perlin’s 92-minute-long documentary film BUNKER at Vega Scene. BUNKER (2021) is a feature film that investigates the lonely lives of American men who have decided to live in decommissioned military bunkers and nuclear missile silos, and follows the process of building and selling these structures to the wealthy and not-so-wealthy alike.

15 March 5.30 PM: Bunker will be screened at Vega Scene, followed by exhibition opening at ROM at 7 PM!

Bunker will further be screened at 24 March, 7 April and 14 April at 1 PM.

21 March 12 PM - 3 PM: Jenny Perlin is currently a PhD fellow Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and will present her doctoral artistic research project Eureka. See more here.

Jenny Perlin

Jenny Perlin’s films work with and against the documentary tradition, incorporating innovative stylistic techniques to emphasize issues of truth, misunderstanding, and personal history. Perlin is a PhD candidate in Visual Art the National Academy of Art in Oslo. In addition to her work as an artist and writer, Perlin is director of The Hoosac Institute, a platform for text and image focusing on works that don’t fit conventional disciplinary narratives. 

https://www.jennyperlinstudio.com/

https://hoosacinstitute.com/

https://beyondplace.substack.com/

We are looking forward to the exhibition opening March 15th, 2024!

Find more information about Arkitekturfilm Oslo here.