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).

NR 29 Verkstedlager

Christine: ‘Fløytespilleren’ ble aldri ferdig. Den ligger i løse biter midt i kjelleren, slik den ble etterlatt av Finn. Den hører sammen med mosaikkbildet av kvinnen i vinduet, som står i atelieret. Bildet sto under vann i lange perioder, og med vannet kom det både sand og jord. Når man skulle inn hit, måtte man ta på høye gummistøvler. Gaute ville så gjerne at vi skulle modellere bildet ferdig slik at det ble komplett. Det var visst ett av de siste bildene til hans far Finn.

Nina: Kjelleren var et spennende sted, og den var ikke våt da vi bodde her. Vi hadde fått en del av kjelleren som vi kunne bruke. Så var det en del som tilhørte huset, men som vi kunne låne. Den innerste delen av kjelleren var hemmelig og ikke tilgjengelig. Her var det forbudt å gå.

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