(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
It was summer with sun and newspapers full of substance about the EU vote in England. Together with actor Rebekka Nystabakk, I rang the bell at the small door for visitors in the prison wall to Oslo Prison in Åkerbergveien 11. We put away all electronic equipment, went through security checks and were locked in to keep inmates' writing workshops. The aim was to get the eight participants to write texts that would form the basis of an art project curated by the Munch Museum and the Young Artists Society (UKS). We had already told them about the project and said that with the texts they wrote, if there were any texts, we wanted to have an "impossible" meeting with the neighborhood on the other side of the wall. Then we asked them to forget our goal. We asked them to think about the seven days we were going to be together as a kind of chemistry lab where we experimented. We asked them not to censor themselves. We asked them to forget about spelling rules. And we said that we were going to focus on the text and not on why they were sitting inside.
Life minus life. Some joined the project because they liked to write, and some joined because it was summer vacation and Oslo Prison is a high risk prison with a lot of cell time in July and August. Those who did not write cut into existing text that was re-pasted. Eventually we saw that a common vocabulary appeared, several words were left: Letter, air, rain, sun, shower, coffee, bird, key, bank sounds, phone, calling, tv, order, shopping list, aeration, soap, mushroom, locking, silence, solitude, dinner, gratitude, worthlessness, cell number, community, courtesy, milk, cell washing. Words that mean other things in there than out here. "Coffee: a taste of everyday life, outside the walls. Coffee tastes the same, after all. ”Sandals prevent foot fungus. "Showers are associated with time pressure, good morning greetings with control." "Rain gives good conscience, the feeling of not missing anything." "And some of the words just belong to life in there. Sitting for example, reflecting on the hour each day where two inmates can be together on one's cell, under supervision. And grid check, the daily inspection of the window grille: "As an assurance that an escape route even MacGyver had considered particularly demanding, is not available." The distinctiveness of each individual began to show. We encouraged to continue writing on the cell, and some continued overnight. They were hungry. On coffee and on information. On books and newspapers we brought. On feedback. In contact with the other participants, with us, with the outside world, a reality. "We never step on earth," wrote one of them. "We live behind the people," wrote another, "behind technology. It's like life, minus life. " "Thank you for a no," wrote a third about the frustration of being rewarded for being polite in prison. The cell was described as "an 8 m2 toilet with bed". They read aloud. They gave each other feedback. Both disagreed and recognized themselves in the others. The EU vote in England was followed with an arguing eye, and Brexit became part of some texts: "On TV, a person talks about what it will be like for the UK after the country left the EU. These are just loose thoughts. You can never quite know. "
An ergometer bike is associated with the impossibility of stepping off: "Bike doesn't wear me out, but it's called bike."
Transaction. We were looking forward to the next day's session. And no longer did we care about the trapped classroom with the dim light and the faint breeze of sour coffee and smoke rising out of the cells where the smoking law has not yet come into force. On the last day, I didn't want to leave. The streets were almost empty, except for the occasional pedestrian and the 20 bus which regularly passed on the other side of the wall. It rained, and we put in hundreds of texts for which we were given the rights to edit and be editors of the art project. Those who have written them must be anonymous for security reasons and for the sake of any offenders. Therefore, all names are replaced by their cell number. Some have already got a new cell, some are in other prisons. We asked them what it was like to write for an art project. "I thank you, I write better," one responded, while another wrote:
"It all started when the two somewhat nice ladies came to learn and learn from us. Write this and write that, they commanded away. Write it down and print out the latest in stock right now, and we'll go our way. And going forward they go their way and they take what we have written and what we have said. Going forward, they will have the same thoughts as when they came here. "
I asked if he really meant it. He said, "You give your finger and you take your whole hand." He also gave me a hug. And he signed the agreement where he gave us the right to free use of the texts. I thought about the duality of the project and the transaction they were part of. They were given a seven-day writing workshop. They were allowed to spend more time with others outside the cell than they would have had if they were not in the writing workshop. We gave them initiators and feedback on their texts. We tried to see them. We offered them a valve out. But we also had an agenda. And there is a great responsibility in asking someone to create something they must subsequently trust that we will convey in a respectful way. I hope we have succeeded.
