Brekkegarden has hosted three artist-in-residencies, and have planned two more in the years to come. The purpose of the residencies has been the development of the art trail "Allfar".

These are our visiting artists:

Fresh

Naomi Wright

I aim to challenge and encourage conversation about the role of playing outdoors for us and for the long-term benefit of our environment. With this collaborative practice I am questioning the way we live our lives, as part of nature. I accept my actions are small, for who is to say that a conversation in a den, or on facebook has the bigger impact?

I am interpreting the visible and invisible boundaries that define our social and ecological interplay. Working across time and space, art and science, urban and rural places, I am:

Devising and running playful projects
Creating objects, situations and 'houses' for play
Making a visual record and reflection of playful behaviour
Having conversations and sowing seeds of new playful thoughts
Designing places and play opportunities

I am particularly interested in the role of memory in play and place making. How do we keep the child within us, as adults, when we play in the natural world?

Jenny Cleary

Walking is by its very nature a repeated physical action. This repetition not only serves to move me across ground, but also acts as a process to access an 'in between', a space or mode of being, devoid of any conscious perception or reasoning. This space allows a movement of forces, emotional influences and information to flow freely through my body, deepening my engagement with and understanding of a place.

Marit Moltu

"Stadar for Stunder" og "Perifére Senter" har lenge vore mine tema, og fordi dei rører ved alt, er dei for meg utømelege kjelder til kunst.

Det handlar om å gå i dialog med seg sjølv og andre, og med den staden du

står på, td. i den naturen som omgir oss…. Finne att respekten for det ein

idag kallar ingenting, våge å sjå både inni tomleiken og dei abstrakte verdiar…..

Eg arbeider med «Billedleg Handling», der kunsten kan skje undervegs og i det

melliom-mennesklege. Difor er slike arbeidstitlar som Hug og Minne / Tapt men Attfunne både inspirerande og logiske for mitt virke som kunstnar.

"Places for moments" and "Peripheral Centra" have been my themes for a long time, these themes move everything, touch everything, and to me they are inexhaustible sources for art.

It is about entering a dialogue with oneself and others, and with that particular place where you are standing, in the nature that surrounds us. Regaining the respect for what we today call "nothing", dare to look inside the void and the abstract values. I work with Visual Actions, where the art can arise along the way, and between us.

Working titles as "Thought and Memory", and "Lost but Found" are hence both inspiring and logical for my work as an artist.

Val Ashby

My work is concerned with natural energetic processes and transformation with the transient and invisible. It is a reflection on our humanity as part of a wider ecology; the wonder and intense joy of aliveness and deep connection; a consideration of beauty and loss; honouring and letting go.

"For a simple poetic image, there is no project; a flicker of the soul is all that is needed."

Gaston Bachelard

Panagiotis Brentas

I perceive the natural world as an archetypical gallery in which the flora and the fauna are the pieces of art I have been looking for. My main quest concerns about the 'hidden and elusive' in the natural scenery, which are encoded behind the phenomena. Through my practice I explore the traces, which secretly connect the human psyche with the non-human world.

My effort lies on my willingness to realise in act the cultivation of my ecological self. In order to fulfill this aspiration I look for direct experiences in nature, for contacts which can potentially trigger the deepening of the experience. I consider experience as an essential way of querying life.

The biggest part of my art practice has taken place outdoors in the natural landscape and the creative process was intensive and rich. I visited animals, trees, creeks, and mountains, resulting in the expanding of myself into the landscape.

Metaphorically, my work is a rhythmic knocking on a wooden gate, a silent calling for asking that reveals the secrets of nature, and a transformation to a new deeper ecological personality.

Beate Moltubakk Ørstavik

Eg kallar dette prosjektet:

Cats are people too. Kattar er meir.

Fordi det er dyra som opnar mitt hjarte.

Til det usynlege der ånda kviler.

I have named this project:

"Cats are people too". Cats are more.

They are the beings who open my heart.

To the invisible where the spirit rests.

Liv- Margrethe Ulvund

Singer

Liv- Margrethe participated on the official opening of Brekkegarden with a breathtaking performance. Her ethereal voice, appearing from somewhere in the woods, provided a mesmerizing experience for the audience.