Drawing session with Zheng Bo
Victoriahuset, Natural History Museum, Sars’ gate / Monrads gate 1, Oslo, 1:00–2:00 PM
Program
Welcome by Anneleen Kool, University of Oslo, Botanical Garden
Drawing session led by Zheng Bo, City University of Hong Kong
Participation is limited.
If you are interested, please contact: susawint@khio.no and/or anna.grasskamp@ifikk.uio.no
A Good Life
Film screening by works of Zheng Bo followed by panel discussion
February 9, 3:00–5:00 PM, Kunstnernes Hus, Wergelandsveien 17, 0167 Oslo
Please join us for a screening of three works by Hong Kong-based artist and theorist Zheng Bo, who has published widely on ecocritical positions in art and art history, and whose artistic work engages with how plants practice politics. The screening is followed by a panel discussion that focuses on Zheng Bo’s work and is joined by the artist as well as four Oslo-based contributors.
We will show (parts of) the following works:
Zheng Bo, Phoenix (2024)
Zheng Bo, Pteridophilia 3 (2018)
Zheng Bo, The Political Life of a Coral Lagoon 1 (2025)
Discussants
Zheng Bo is learning to live a good life on Earth — one of material simplicity and ecological vibrancy. Since 2013, he has been studying with plants: ferns in Taiwan, mosses in Scandinavia, grass trees in Western Australia, and date palms in the Arabian Peninsula. Lately, he is turning toward the ocean, getting to know a coral lagoon in the South Pacific. His works are in the collections of Tate, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Power Station of Art, and Hammer Museum, among others.
Lara Okafor (they/them) is a writer, editor, software developer, and curator. They were Fotogalleriet’s Curatorial Fellow 2024–25. Lara is interested in Black Studies, prison abolition, speculative fiction, queerness, technology, and how those topics overlap. Lara has a BSc and MSc in Computer Science. They have written a thesis about digital security for queer people of colour, a short story (“Sevenfold”) in the Norwegian sci-fi anthology A Line Through Gravity, and pieces published in Fett, Billedkunst, TrAP, and Samora Forum. They have also moderated conversations and held workshops and talks at places such as Office for Contemporary Art (OCA), MUNCH Museum, and Kunstnernes Hus.
Geir Haraldseth is a curator at the National Museum in Norway. There, he co-curated the inaugural exhibition I Call it Art with Randi Godø in 2022. In 2022 he also co-curated When the Body Says Yes by Melanie Bonajo for the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Previous positions include Director of Rogaland Kunstsenter (2012–18) in Stavanger. Together with Busy Gangnes he runs the record label NuTroll that focuses on music as art.
SMW explores the sentient economy, cultures, and transformations of elements. In forms and materials they trace species and their social geopolitical context. Winterling’s practice reflects upon aesthetic entanglements and power structures among human, animal, and matter and engages the representation of reality. They investigate what pure information and form leave out through a sensual approach to media and material informed by embodiment before language and power as energy flows.
Chair
Anna Grasskamp is Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Oslo. She first met Zheng Bo during her almost six years at Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Arts when they were both members of the Critical Ecologies working group of Shared Campus. Currently she leads the ERC-funded research project An Ecological History of Eurasian Art. In 2024, she curated The Art of Upcycling. Contemporary Jewelry from Hong Kong at GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts and published (Re)made in China. Material (Dis)connections, Art, and Creative Reuse.
Collaborators
Oslo Center of Environmental Humanities research group Ritual, Ecology, Affect, and Performativity and the project ECOART, in collaboration with the Arts and Craft Lectures and the MFA programme in medium- and material-based arts at KHiO – Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Registration
Contact
Anna Grasskamp
anna.grasskamp@ifikk.uio.no