World Premiere at the Norwegian National Museum

Tuesday, April 14 at 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM
Artist talk on Wednesday, April 15 at 5:30 PM

How does fear manifest itself? According to Maria Metsalu, fear is what shapes the self.

–⁠ Through movement, scenography, and poetic metaphors, Permanent Resident maps the geology of the psyche and creates a visually and physically demanding exploration of what it actually means to live when fear has become a home, says Maria Metsalu.

Maria Metsalu (1990) is a Estonian performance artist, educated at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam. She is known for being very physical. Typically she places herself at the center and utilises her own body in the performances.

–⁠ We’ve been in dialogue with Maria Metsalu for over a year and a half for a performance at the National Museum possible. In the beginning the idea was to stage an existing work, but the result has become something entirely new—a premiere! says Director of Collections, Nora Nerdrum.

The scenography in Permanent Resident is an abstract landscape with geometric shapes in bold colors, almost like an idealized children’s drawing. Yet it is full of dangers—smoke, fire, and sharp knives—which together form an inner landscape. The work unfolds as an internal childlike landscape - one in which the performer’s body negotiates a dynamic and paradoxical relationship with its surroundings. Her movements within this scenography create an intense and raw dynamic. Movement, design, text, and music are all central elements of the work.

Metsalu is an artist whose work centers the body as a site, an archive of lived experience and a nexus around which social and political issues coalesce. Often utilizing bodily charged expressions, the vulnerability and agency on display, inherent to such an approach, reveals the impact of our contemporary condition on a social body while also articulating the impulse toward self-determination. Her performances delve into the tension between abject embodiment and flawless high-tech, exploring the intersection of identity, voyeurism, and corporate technologies. Rather than resolving meaning, Metsalu cultivates ambiguity - opening space for expanded interpretation instead of offering a conceptual closure.

Metsalu was a founding member of the performance collective Young Boy Dancing Group (YBDG), where she challenges the boundaries of performance and visual art through a post-apocalyptic DIY aesthetic. Her solo works have been shown at the ICA Arts Centre (London),  Art In General Gallery (Performa17 in New York), Manifesta 11 (Zurich), Alt_Cph18 Art Fair (Copenhagen), TINA Gallery (London), Kiasma (Helsinki) to name a few.

Young boy dancing group's performance and exhibition venues include: Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin), Art Basel (Basel), Pioneerworks (NYC), Performance Space (NYC), Mendes Wood DM Gallery (Sau Paolo),  O'Flaherty Gallery (NYC), Athens Biennale. 

This is her first performance in Norway.

Kanuti Gildi SAAL in Tallinn, Estonia is co-producing the performance.

The project supported by Kulka, Estonian Cultural Endowment, The Ministry of Culture of Estonia, Estonian
Embassy in Oslo and OÜ NOBE.