1 place 33 rooms – Portrait of a house

Christine Petersen

1 place 33 rooms “Memory, including collective memory, is linked to houses. When we eradicate a place in the exterior world, we lose a major pathway into our own history.” Lena Lindgren, Morgenbladet, 2. November 2012 The project is based on a real place, a house in Oslo. I am interested in how our memory connects with places and houses, in expanding our understanding of what a house and a place are, seen from the perspective of our own cultural background, time and history – and in the perceptions and experiences that are associated with it. In the significance of how the rooms are organised in relation to each other and what happens if the room is freed from the context in which it stands. It is rare to experience an isolated room that doesn’t relate to anything else, torn from its place, time and spatial context. The neutral room simply doesn’t exist. A key aspect of architecture is the experience of going from one room to another. The way the rooms are organised in relation to each other affects the sense of what it is like to be in the house. From the starting point that architecture begins with a single room, I have explored what criteria a space has to fulfil to be called a room and how big it has to be. Everyone relates to rooms – whether it is a private room like a bedroom, kitchen, dining room, or a public space such as a café, library or railway station. The work comprises six physical installations, plus the book and archive “33 fortellinger” (33 stories).

NR27 Kjellerutgang

Christine: Da vi overtok huset, overtok vi også mange gjenstander. Mange ble etterlatt fordi de var uten verdi, eller fordi Gaute ikke orket å hente dem. En av tingene var en tung slipestein som stod innerst i kjelleren. Finn hadde brukt den til å slipe til glassmosaikken. Ett år etter at vi hadde flyttet inn ringte Gaute og ville ha steinen. Vi skulle reise bort, så det ble til at vi bestemte oss for å bære den opp kjellertrappen og sette den utenfor kjellerinngangen. Den veide sikkert nærmere 80 kg. Det var så vidt jeg og Anne klarte å lempe den opp trappene. Gaute kom med en kamerat for å hente den. Ikke lenge etterpå døde han av hjerteinfarkt.

Nina: Jeg opplevde at Gaute og Tuva ofte var uenige om ting. De kom aldri til huset samtidig. Da vi bodde her hadde Gaute fortsatt nøkler til huset, og gikk ofte inn kjellerinngangen for å hente noe eller sette noe fra seg.

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