I Vesterled
The Pier Store, Shetland Museum & Archives
Saturday 20th June: 10.00 – 17.00 / Sunday 21st June: 12.00 – 17.00
A new exhibition, entitled I Vesterled, opens this Saturday at the Pier Store, Shetland Museum and Archives. The exhibition features the work of David Rios, Hilde Skevik, Ånond Versto, Bjørn Mortensen, Bernat Daviu , Kunstnergruppen KATLA, Jonas Ib F. H. Jensen and Sarah Jost; eight young artists based in Bergen.
The exhibition has been brought to Shetland by the 29 foot sailboat s/y Havskrømt and its unskilled crew. They set off from Bergen on Sunday evening, expecting to arrive in Lerwick 72 hours later, sending ahead the request to ‘call the Norwegian Coast Guard’ if they were not sighted by this deadline.
For the artists, the lure of traditional trade routes and the act of journeying was the driving force for undertaking this risky trip. ‘The horizon is there, gaping at you, what fool would not urge towards it?’ they state. ‘Our voyage began with an urge to sail into the western horizon, a horizon that we feel the presence of every day, and to cross the North Sea. To do so is a long tradition, a tradition of cultural exchange, settlement and trade, in a time when the North Sea was an important link between Norway and the Western islands.’
‘Our trade is in the arts, and the goods that we carry are works of art, we wanted to bring them with us on the ancient westward lane, as a cultural export, and to show them along the way.’
The exhibition is supported by Shetland Arts, Bergen municipality, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Shetland Museum and Archives. The exhibition will be open to the public for a limited time only between Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st June.
