The Milky Way (Melkeveien) (2016)

The work is inspired by a 1930's propaganda campaign for milk in Norway that carried with it a dark racial undertone. In the propaganda cartoon milk, which is seen as the pure white national product, imprisons coffee due to its perceived imported impurities. 

The performance installation developed out of a larger project working with prisoners in Oslo. Prisoners frequently referred to their moments of freedom when undertaking simple actions such as drinking a cup of coffee. The performance responded to these moments by exploring how consumables are used as a form of control by prison officers.

Using the form of a football match, the characters of Coffee and Milk confront each other on a constructed pitch. The movement of the players on the pitch was commentated on by a pair of opera singers, who relay the game based on a shifting vocal score. The sounds produced by the commentators flatten the hierarchy of language, taking away the power given to words that direct attention, agenda and action. 

Performed by: 
Ksenia Aksenova, Per Magnus Barlaug, Silje Johannessen, Don Lawrence, Eline Reve, Benjamin Lønne Røsler, Eirik Slyngstad and Espen Solsbak 

Photogrphy: 
Rena Li (Munch Museeum) and Roderick Hietbrink