FAT was among the applicants when ROM announced an Open Call in 2022. We invited a broad professional community to submit project ideas that could highlight what promotes and hinders people with physical disabilities in relation to architecture and urban development, whether it is to work as an architect, planner, or artist, or how to facilitate functional variation in the experience of architecture, place, and art.

The exhibition "I'm sorry if my disability causes you any inconvenience" is a statement about exclusion and the feeling of being a burden. FAT has a strong personal commitment to this theme, and the exhibition is a comprehensive installation of concrete experiences of ROM's accessibility/inaccessibility. During the process with ROM, FAT expressed a desire to intervene in our premises by building elevators and ramps, showing physical and conceptual interventions and texts. Practical considerations, permits, and partly economics have naturally influenced the process and what can be achieved by the exhibition opening in May 2024. The willingness to change our physical premises to both enhance accessibility for more people and demonstrate the artistic ability to think innovatively and alternatively is strong. Therefore, the exhibition not only shows final artistic results but also ideas and processes for how and what we can change in physical conditions to improve accessibility for more people.

Excerpt from FAT's own text for the exhibition:

The title "I’m sorry if my disability causes you any inconvenience" plays on the feeling of being a burden. For architecture often poses a burden for those who are not 100% able-bodied, while at the same time, there is an uncomfortable feeling of being a burden when one constantly has to ask for help or adjustments to get around. Far too often, people with disabilities encounter architecture that makes everyday tasks, such as the basic need to use the toilet, a strenuous challenge. Some architects and builders may perceive the requirements for accessibility and universal design as a bothersome and costly factor. In many places, it seems as if these requirements have become a parenthesis or footnote late in the work, rather than an integrated part of the creative process. Some buildings are technically accessible for, for example, a wheelchair user, but access often requires a cumbersome process: calling personnel, being guided to the back of the building, or to a slow platform lift where one is on display like an involuntary circus performer. One gets into the building, but at what cost? The architect meets legal requirements but without regard for the user's dignity.

At the same time, countless older cultural buildings remain year after year with limited accessibility. We see that today's legislation places few concrete demands on facilitation and accessibility in older buildings. Often, the lack of accessibility in such buildings is explained by economic constraints or antiquarian considerations, and a vague legal framework likely also contributes to building owners often lacking the motivation to make expensive and/or extensive adaptations. Perhaps they also struggle to see the need? Or is the paralyzing apathy a consequence of the tyranny of normality? In what we see as a relatively equal and modern society, it is silently accepted that many places are entirely or partially inaccessible. What would the consequences be if we had stricter legislation, where, for example, lack of accessibility resulted in daily fines and, in extreme cases, requirements for closure? What if accessibility regulations were enforced as rigidly as the Food Safety Authority's inspections of dining establishments?

(Translated with AI)

FAT is the duo Fredrik Alden Thorsen and Anja Tveiterås.

Fredrik Thorsen is a self-taught photographer with experience from various freelance assignments. He has worked with documentary photography for newspapers and magazines, as well as undertaken numerous assignments for municipalities, companies, and private individuals. Thorsen is short-statured, a wheelchair user, and lives with chronic nerve pain and paralysis after several spinal cord injuries. He has a strong commitment to social issues and is passionate about equality and autonomy for all people, regardless of disabilities. Thorsen uses his own experiences of living with disabilities as the basis for his work on this project.

Anja Tveiterås has an art education from Falmouth College of Arts and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHIO), as well as experience in teaching and various projects in art, illustration, and design. Among other things, she created the exhibition "Zooleisna," a combination of photo collages and texts about exclusion and community dynamics in the periphery. Tveiterås also handled illustrations and graphic design for the Fusa municipality's dictionary project "Gasta greie." She currently combines her artistic activities with work as a user-controlled personal assistant (BPA), which has given her deeper insight into the issues this project seeks to explore.

The project is supported by Balansekunst, BKH Vederlagsfondet, Fritt Ord, and Kulturrådet.