Advice of Ancestors
Installation exploring geological time, inheritance and memory through foam rubber, fossils, paper money, found objects and exposure to daylight.
Installation View: Høstutstillingen 2023, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, NBK Photo: Vegard Kleven
Installation View: Høstutstillingen 2023, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, NBK Photo: Vegard Kleven
‘Advice of Ancestors’ is encountered almost like a cave wall. From a distance, the installation appears as an expanse of fleshy pink foam; on closer inspection, small objects emerge from its surface — trilobites, fossils, meteorites and paper money. These objects come from Nel’s personal collection of what she thinks of as “planetary time objects,” bringing geological, cosmic, economic and personal histories into proximity.
The banknotes are concealed within the foam in reference to Nel’s grandmother, who hid money inside her mattress. Alongside fossils and meteorites, this intimate gesture of inheritance becomes part of a much larger field of temporalities, where ancestral memory extends beyond the familial and human.
Daylight enters the installation as an active force. Over the duration of the exhibition, sunlight gradually stains, marks and deteriorates the pink foam. Objects placed on its surface interrupt this exposure, leaving pale “ghost forms” behind when removed. Some of these traces remain from previous installations, allowing earlier configurations and environments to persist within the material.
The foam therefore operates as both surface and recording device: absorbing light, retaining traces and altering the acoustics of the room through its capacity to absorb sound. Rather than remaining a stable support for the objects it contains, the material continually registers its encounters with bodies, objects, architecture and light.
The materials within ‘Advice of Ancestors’ inhabit radically different durations — from meteorites and prehistoric fossils to banknotes and industrial foam whose colour is inherently unstable. Their coexistence brings human memory into contact with geological and planetary time, while the installation itself continues to change, carrying traces of one place and moment into the next.