Kirsten has been on a residency with us in March 2024. During this period, she has worked with fabric and watercolor, inspired by the different types of rock here. The fusion of minerals, traces of the ice age, traces of people who have worked in the mines here. She herself writes about her stay:

"It was nice to commute between the director's residence and the studio at Velferden, with traces of the miners' workrooms. The mountains and nature. TIME inspired me. Thousands of years are hidden behind the different patterns in the stones I picked up in my backpack. I used reference books, admired science, studied symbols and signs, captivated by all the knowledge that exists. The fact that over the years it has been discovered that there is burning lava inside the earth! 

I've always thought that the great monumental mountains are robust and can survive every little human life. The body is a fragile organism full of minerals. Calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, magnesium and iron. At Sandbekk, I saw how the mining and extraction of ore has made a major impact on the Ice Age landscape. Traces and imprints. Ingenious inventions and brutal interventions. How do we affect the environment we conquer? How does nature respond when we help ourselves, shameless and greedy. An unnatural wound. A change. An exotic landscape of man-made nature. Grains of sand cover large areas. Creepy fences demarcate sinkholes and deep mine shafts that are not safe for traffic. Few of us are blameless. Consumers. I use titanium white when I paint. I use titanium without even realizing it. While mountains are blown to smithereens. Man and mountain. I am a mountain. I am a human being."