'On Mutant Prospects': Essay in Independent Curators International
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'On mutant prospects, hyperobjects and the contentious materiality of aesthetics', an essay by Arnau Horta (Curatorial Intensive Alum, New York Fall 2013), the 2025 Curatorial Research Traveler attending the ninth edition of Coast Contemporary. Published on Independent Curators International, May 4, 2026. From Independent Curators International: 'Very close to Titania, in what were once the mine’s offices, is the Velferden Sokndal Scene for Samtidskunst, directed and curated by artists Maiken Stene and Hans Edward Hammonds. This space, dedicated to the research and production of contemporary art, hosts artists and professionals from around the world for short- and long-term stays, offering studios, workshops, and related facilities. In addition to residencies, the center organizes exhibitions, concerts, symposia, courses, and seminars open to the public. Velferden (which means “welfare state” in Norwegian) functions as an interdisciplinary platform focused on the relationships between human activity, artistic practice, and nature. Its work engages with the material history of the region and addresses not only the artistic community, but the local population more broadly. "Situated artistic research and production"? That is, precisely, what this space proposes.
Indeed, mutantship, understood in a Harawayan sense—that is, as a defining condition of a damaged world that compels us to “stay in trouble” and to seek solutions beyond utopian or fatalistic positions—manifests itself paradigmatically in Velferden. Under the title “AVGANG / DEPONI” (Waste / Deposit), the center’s current program focuses on the possibilities offered by mining waste as an artistic material, economic resource, and social symbol. It was within this framework that the artist and researcher Marte Johnslien presented her project White to Earth, in which she examines whiteness as a symbol of “purity, power, and progress” and investigates how titanium dioxide functions as an omnipresent element in a wide range of everyday and consumer products. As she notes, this pigment is also found in the human body, where it accumulates after being ingested in food or medications (listed as "E171" in ingredient lists). Johnslien draws on Timothy Morton’s concept of the hyperobject to describe the nonlocal, hyper-distributed, and “sticky” nature of this pigment: although we live surrounded by it, we are rarely aware of the vast industrial and geological networks that produce it.
Following Morton, Johnslien also points out that the effects of titanium dioxide manifest themselves “interobjectively” in the aesthetic properties of the modern world. Without this pigment, the white seen on walls and objects of all kinds would be more opaque, grayish, or yellowish, altering perceptions of modernity as well as configurations of capitalist desire. She connects this observation to a historical coincidence: the invention of this pigment, known as “the whitest white,” occurred at the same time as Kazimir Malevich’s first white monochromes. What do the artistic projects of the early avant-garde and the chemical industry of the early twentieth century share in their understanding of materiality and purity? How far does this equivalence extend, and how does it continue to shape aesthetic expectations today? What would the experience of spectators—and the work of artists, curators, critics, and researchers—be like if this dazzling white did not exist?'
