Seventeen social scientists
Next to the Information in the SV building there are seventeen small prints on fabric, framed in glass. The motifs, famous thinkers, are pixellated, made up of circular dots that are denser in some areas. From a distance they look like black and white photos, but if we move closer, the images dissolve into abstract, patterned surfaces.
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The prints depict well-known social scientists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Margaret Mead and Claude Lévi-Strauss. The pictures are the size of regular album photographs, giving them an intimate character that is unusual for portraits of academic greats. The name of the individual is written into all the pictures, but can be almost illegible amongst all the dots. Fortunately, these personages are iconic enough that they are recognized, especially by SV students and staff who daily deal with their theories. The Faculty of Social Sciences is good at acquiring images that have relevance for their professional identity.
Åsne Midtgarden (1962 -) is a textile designer. She graduated from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 1994. Over the next ten years she exhibited works in Washington DC, Stockholm and several places in Norway, and was purchased by the Arts Council Norway. In 2004 Midtgarden formed the designer quartet Scandinavian Surface together with three of her colleagues. The design company has since attracted international attention with its distinctive tapestries and other textiles, and has had pieces purchased for public collections.
NORA SØRENSEN VAAGE