SERENDIPITY
Winking man finding his Winking houseSeptember 02 2021
My interest in serendipity and healing developed through my first project in the Master’s Program in Art and Public Space at KHiO. The assignment was connected to the Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art in Lillestrøm, where wooden houses and gardens were being replaced by larger residential blocks, as part of the ongoing urban developments taking place in the city.
During walks, I discovered an abandoned house that appeared to be winking through a curtain in one opening. The curtain resembled those used in my earlier interventions. I contacted the demolition company, collected materials from the house and reconstructed the wink as an installation at Nitja. At the opening, a visitor from a local rehabilitation center recognized the curtain and said, “This is my house.”
His name was Jarle. One of his eyes had been paralyzed following trauma connected to his UN service in Lebanon. Through an encounter that could not have been planned, the Winking Man found his Winking House.
The project does not present coincidence as proof of a predetermined meaning. It shows how site-based research, material reuse and public exhibition can create conditions in which unexpected personal histories enter a work. This encounter became a basis for developing Serendipity as a research strand.
Photos of the slides used in my presentation at KHIO auditorium for MAMBA and MAPS students.