Indian art takes a bow at Norway's triennial

Surrounded by verdant mountains and deep fjords, the town of Bergen on Norway's west coast is famous for Bryggen, a series of Hanseatic heritage buildings lining its harbour.

- Meera Menezes

Lesser known, perhaps, is that this charming city also plays host to the Bergen Assembly, a triennial that supports artistic exploration and public engagement, bringing together artists, thinkers and communities alike. While the duration of the Assembly is three months, concluding on 9 November, it unfolds beyond that period. For instance, a series of ‘cross courses’ were organised between February 2024 to February next year involving various artists and practitioners across disciplines. All in all, the Assembly is meant to be experiential: a communal process that emphasises sharing rather than merely exhibiting.

The fifth edition of the Assembly, titled ‘across, with, nearby’, has been convened by Indian artist-activist Ravi Agarwal, Palestinian author Adania Shibli and the Bergen School of Architecture (BAS). The first edition of the Assembly took place in 2013, and the convenors are chosen by an advisory and executive board. Outlining some of his preoccupations in a curatorial note, Agarwal wrote, “How is it possible to create new conversations from near and far between practices that are in fact similar despite having seemingly dissimilar conceptions? Can we create common grounds of love, empathy and cultural tolerance as modes that allow these different formations to prosper?”

The responses to some of these questions can be teased out in the Bergen Kunsthall, which faces the serene Lille Lungegardsvannet lake. Entering the building, one is drawn to artist Vikrant Bhise’s arresting Memory, Resistance, and Consciousness. Rendered in a muted palette, the large-format painting is a complex interweaving of episodes of Dalit resistance movements. In the museum's bookstore, a selection of Bhise’s postcard-sized series Archival Historicity/Dalit Panthers pays homage to the Dalit Panthers and their role in the anti-caste movement.