Hans Kristian Borchgrevink Hansen is concerned with the artistic mapping of specific geographical areas; for this purpose, he uses found materials and film documentation of small discoveries he makes in the streets, in parks or at flea markets, etc. The everyday objects (hair ties, paper clips, pieces of plastic) or fragments of them, which the artist collects literally by hand or with the aid of his camera, are combined into a multifaceted image of the city’s visual undercurrents and resemble miniatures of modernist sculpture with their often indefinable, abstract forms. Hansen assembles these found objects and fragments into small-format sculptural objects or makes them into protagonists in the scurrilous and humorous animation films he produces himself using the simplest of technology.
With Life in the Undergrowth Borchgrevink Hansen provides an equally fantastic, entertaining and thoughtful insight into the urban undercurrents of Berlin as his temporary environment. The exhibition shows large-format projections of two newly made animation films as well as a collection of small-format sculptures covering a full wall, constructed from snippets, fragments and found objects; the artist himself characterises this as a “cabinet of curiosities”.

Hans Kristian Borchgrevink Hansen (*1985) is a grantee of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).