Dreaming in the Stone-bed Valley by Siri Hermansen is a non-verbal short-film with two micro stories that seeks to reflect on how the long term conflict turns the abnormal into the normal and the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and that this process of normalization is a survival strategy in itself. The stories express how human, nature and politics down to the smallest individual level are closely intertwined and affected by the long term conflict between Israel and Palestine. Temporary adaption and survival strategies become permanent solutions and part of everyday life. Duality can also be seen in her photographic image Two Horizons. Hermansen has for this work been travelling to Jerusalem and the West Bank. In her travels for work she seeks places that have undergone major upheavals or deep processes of change, that have affected globally. She is most concerned with how people and nature adapt and develop new survival strategies in places like the West Bank.

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Siri Hermansen (b. 1969 in Geneva, lives and works in Oslo). Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally including; Sami Center for Contemporary Art, Kautokeini, Oslo Kunstforening, Stenersen Art Museum, Oslo, RAM Galleri, Oslo, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Roma, Kunstbanken, Hamar, Tromsø Kunstforening, Møre og Romsdal Kunstsenter, UKS, Oslo, Sørlandets Kunstsenter, MK Gallery, Rotterdam, Seoul New Media Festival, 19th Biennale of Sydney, Detroit Contemporary, Tromsø Museum, Moscow Museums of Photography, Today Art Museum, Beijing, M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, Lithuania, Haugar Kunstmuseum, Tønsberg, Oslo Kunsthall, Galerie Yoshii, Paris, France.

Siri Hermansen is otherwise relevant in the exhibition The Place Between Here and There at Akershus Kunstsenter in Lillestrøm, from March 24th through April 30th.

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[www.sirihermansen.com]

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Siri Hermansen in conversation with Johnny Herbert >>>