Travelling Huts and Invading Spaceships: Marianne Heske, Tiril Schrøder, and Norwegian Romantic Landscapes

Abstract

The article discusses the art of the contemporary artists Marianne Heske and Tiril Schrøder, their quotations of romantic landscape, and the way this has been defined in art history. Most readings of Heske and Schrøder place them firmly in a contemporary context. By exploring the reference often made between the two artists and the concept of ‘landscape’ in art history, the article highlights how many readings, despite insisting on deconstruction in Heske and Schrøder’s art, still situate their art firmly in a narrative where landscape figures as a genre, where meaning is inherent, and where the artist serves as the visionary mind that sets the whole play off. Through a close reading of Prosjekt Gjerdeløa [Project Gjerdeløa] in relation to ideas of nationality and site as fixed, and to romantic constructions of the painter/scientist as a masculine structure, the article concludes that Heske and Schrøder’s art can be characterized as deconstructive and hybrid spaces. By inscribing meaning and value to hybrid space, their art represents a ‘view from elsewhere’ (de Lauretis), a view that can open doors to new conceptualisations of identity and the body.