POETIC SILENCE
Pop-Up Performances
by Korean Performance Artists Association and Performance Art Bergen
Friday, September 12, 2025
Kunsthall 3,14 — Entrance, Staircase & Public Space
As part of Culture Night in Bergen, Kunsthall 3,14 is proud to present pop-up performances by artists from the Korean Performance Artists Association and Performance Art Bergen. The ephemeral works will activate Kunsthall 3,14’s transitional spaces – the entrance, stairwell, and the surrounding public areas.
The invited artists – Frauke Materlik, Kyuja Bae, Marit Tunestveit Dyre, Susanne Irene Fjørtoft, Sung Cho and Hong-jae Shim explore the intersections between vulnerability, materiality, memory, and spatial experience. Working individually and collectively, they engage with the unique architecture and atmosphere of Kunsthall 3,14 – its thresholds, textures, and relationships to the street outside.
This encounter between Norwegian and Korean performance practices invites to spontaneity, curiosity, and shared presence. The works will appear like quiet ruptures or poetic interruptions in the everyday flow of the city.
Please note that the performances are unannounced and will unfold over the course of the evening, starting 19.30.
The site-sensitive performances will emerge in dialogue with the global at Kunsthall 3,14. Our current exhibitions are open all night from 18.00. The group exhibition 10 Volumes: Fragments of a Shared Landscape presents works by ten contemporary artists who live and work in Cuba today. The works – spanning photography, film, sculpture, and painting – are shaped by tensions within Cuban society. Each of the ten artists contributes to a shared yet fragmented landscape, one that is both personal and political, intimate and collective.
Distopía en Azul/Dystopia in Blue by the artist duo ‘to you they are birds, to me they are voices in the forest’, is presented in PARABOL, the sound installation located in our foyer. Through an improvised performance, the duo weaves sonic threads between the coastal landscapes of western Norway and the islandscapes of Cuba, both real and imaginary. The work is curated by Peter Meanwell from Lydgalleriet.
Participating artists include:
Frauke Materlik, exploring care, plant material, and the tension between control and letting go.
Kyuja Bae, interested in floor-based, audience-engaged performance near the gallery entrance or outdoor stone sculpture.
Marit Tunestveit Dyre, responding to textures, acoustics, and playful impulses in the staircase and public square.
Susanne Irene Fjørtoft, drawn to contrasts between small and large stones, with a focus on audience encounters in public space.
Sung Cho, currently working flexibly between indoor and outdoor performance contexts.
Hong-jae Shim, developing his Wall series – combining drawing, sculpture, and movement – ideally indoors but adaptable to outdoors if needed.
Short BIOs of artists
Frauke Materlik is an artist (MA Byam Shaw at Central Saint Martins, U.K.), gardener (Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hannover, D), landscape architect (MA University of Greenwich, U.K.) and a member of Performance Art Bergen. She understands art as a tool for exploring, navigating and negotiating in complex environments, revolving around questions on how to translate and convey. In her practice, she works in dialogue with her surroundings, combining performance, installation, and horticulture. She exhibits, researches and teaches internationally. Her performances are informed by many years of experience as a gardener, in particular the interactions and juxtapositions of control and letting go, of working within environments and slower circular time frames. Frauke has been awarded numerous residencies and grants, such as at Oak Spring Garden Foundation (U.S.), Kunstdepot Göschenen (CH), Cité des Arts Paris (F) and Nida Art Colony (LT).
More information: www.fraukematerlik.eu
Kyuja Bae is an interdisciplinary artist based in Norway, originally from South Korea. Her practice spans choreography, dance, performance art, theater, writing, and installation. She holds a Master’s degree in Choreography from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and has also studied theater, acting, stage art, and creative writing at institutions including the Norwegian Theatre Academy at Østfold University College in Fredrikstad and the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul. Kyuja approaches dance as a holistic practice—a way to heal and grow, awakening insight, wisdom, and compassion within oneself. Through her performances she explores creative well-being, interconnection, meeting points between Asian culture and Western culture and harmonious coexistence. Her recent artistic research centers on the concept of the Meditative Body, integrating movement, meditation, and mindfulness, exploring slow and silent movements. This practice emphasizes cultivating self-awareness in relation to the mind’s activities—emotions, thoughts, and dreams—while opening a poetic gaze through embodied awareness.
More information: https://cargocollective.com/kyujabae
Susanne Irene Fjørtoft is a Norwegian-based artist who works on the border between performance, performing arts, installation and scenography. Her work reflects on the intangible spaces between us humans and our surroundings where we influence and are influenced.
More information: http://www.susanneirene.no/
Marit Tunestveit Dyre works with performance, observational photography, with text, sculptural elements and in dialogue. As a material and as a source of inspiration, textile is a recurring element in her practice. It is the expanded use of textile in various cultural, economic and political contexts that captures her interest. In resent years walking has become an important working method. She walk to familiarize new social and cultural contexts, in search of inspiration, to learn, to broaden her horizons and to process. Current topics of interest are: walking, growth, hands; making and tacit knowledge, food, textile, and social, cultural, emotional and economic capital. She holds a BA in Specialized art textile (2011), and a MA in Fine Art (2013) both from Bergen National Academy of Art and Design. And a BA in Social Anthropology (2024) from the University of Bergen. Her recent studies reflect her interest and curiosity in the complexity of the societies that we live in.
More information: https://bergenateliergruppe.no/marit-tunestveit-dyre/
Eun Sung Cho is a performance artist and practitioner of the Korean National Intangible Heritage No. 34 the Gangryeong Mask Dance. She began acting in theater during her teenage years and pursued a career as an actor. In 2004, She expanded her focus to performance art and traditional mask dance, marking her official entry into the artistic world. Cho, Eun-sung consistently seeks authentic communication for the genuine process and outcome of art, connecting it with the audience. She also explores the deconstruction of art genres and the close integration of different genres, producing and directing various projects and performances.
Hong-jae Shim is a painter and performance artist. He organized the Peaceful Unification of Korea Eurasian Railway Crossing Project and served as its travel director in 2015. He also participated as a member of the World Peace Art Travel Europe Exploration Team in 2019 and worked as the general curator for the 1st Busan Port International Performing Arts Festival 2008. Currently, he is serving as the president of the Korea Performance Artists Association. He constantly advocates for world peace through performance art.