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Ola Brenno, Bagn.
Sitting at a table playing the langeleik.
Dressed in bunad, Valdres Folk Museum (1901).




Valk til horkluten
sculpted woolen felt
2025, Karoline Bakken Lund 

Research / sculpture sketch 







2025-2026
preliminary reserach project


HORKLUT
*  is an ongoing research project initiated by Karoline Bakken Lund, in close collaboration with choreographer and artist Harald Beharie, and zither players, cultural historians, and museum directors Knut and Ole Aastad Bråten from Gudbrandsdalmusea and Valdresmusea.


This preliminary project explores a performative work — a hybrid of social sculptural practice, the soundscape of the langeleik (Norwegian zither), and the social connotations of folk dance, in visual dialogue with endangered craft traditions and blind spots in folk costume traditions and untold life stories can shape our research, through both a historical and speculative approach to dressing.

Together, we search for ways of entering and staying within the social and the transformative — potentially taking shape as both an abstract being and a shared state for performers and audience. We immerse ourselves in the trance-like qualities of the langeleik sound, their resonance and vibration — even if only for a short moment.



*Horklut, horluva, or horhätta was a hood that mothers of children born outside of marriage (who were labeled as “whores”) were at times forced to wear in parts of Sweden. It signaled their social position: neither unmarried (a maiden could go bareheaded) nor respectably married (a wife typically wore a more covering headpiece). The practice disappeared during the 19th century.








I sleep so deep I’m awake

 hand-drawn piece for Veronica Bruce’s book Mood Swings, 
in dialogue with her writing. 2025, Karoline Bakken Lund



installation view  from Salgshallen  Galleri
photo: Nicolas Jara




Illustrated pieces and visual representations 
of Veronica Bruce’ writing in her book 
MOOD SWINGS
2025 

After a decade of sculptural and performative collaborations, Veronica and Karoline Bakken Lund met in a new medium. Karoline Bakken Lund had the honour of illustrating Bruce’ beautiful book Mood Swings. 

Mood Swings is published by Knapt Forlag with support from the Arts Council Norway and NBK.  The book is printed at Blekksprutn on a risograph machine in Oslo. One of the illustrations is die-cut in collaboration with “Colorama” and “Termindruck” in Berlin. Mood Swings is a development of a series of works from the exhibition On Feeling at Good Weather in Chicago, 2022 by Veronica Bruce. 

Buy the book:

The book was recently presented at the book fair “Available Works” in New York and will be presented at the Oslo Art Book Fair 15-16. nov 2025 

The book is available at Salgshallen galleri , norma_t_ and prismatic.pages and soon at the bookstore Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo. 

On the occasion of the launch, the texts met video and the performance work Sonata — an artistic collaboration between Veronica Bruce and Karoline Bakken Lund in dialogue with Sanna Helena Berger’s soundscape. 





The concept and sculptures are created by Veronica Bruce and Karoline Bakken Lund, with dance and choreography by Veronica Bruce. Filmed in a single take at Momarken Racetrack by Maria Hilde.  

installation view  from Salgshallen  Galleri
photo: Nicolas Jara








DRIB CAN COOLER
Oslo National Academy of the Arts (NO) 

Baseball stitched sealskin
Drib can, Energy drink,
bamboo viscose, wife beater tank top
(import export sculpture series) 2016
by Karoline Bakken Lund





2025-2028
Research article
Norwegian Fashion Histories*


Initiated by Charlotte Bik Bandlien, anthropologist, researcher, critic, professor of theory and methodology at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts,  she is interviewing Karoline Bakken Lund and looking into the post-truth, collapsonomic infused and memes based design process for the costumes and film props Bakken Lund did for and with Kristoffer Borgli’ screenplay DRIB. 

Premiered at SXSW and CPH DOX, 2017
Read Borgli’ interview on DRIB in Dazed digital

*Led by researchers based at the National Museum and the Centre for Design Studies at Kristiania University College, Synne Skjulstad, Hanne Eide and Trond Klevaard, this project aims to discover histories of Norwegian fashion not yet written and to reassess those already known.






























































Karoline Bakken Lund (b. 1989) is a visual artist rooted in textile and performance – mainly as sculpture, both solo and in collaborative constellations. Based in Oslo, Norway.



occational performer 
 ISLAND EXPRESS (De Naive)
Oktoberdans, BIT, Bergen 2021


In the drift of transformation and the pull toward collapse, she shapes hybrid sculptural works that hold space for (re)narration and affection. These works can appear as autonomous objects, visual scapes for performance pieces, installations and subtle acts of political, queer dressing — guided by trans-feminist ethics of care, collectivity, and exploring coexistence through gestures of turbulence and tenderness. 

In her practice, she distorts and mends endangered immaterial textile heritages and ecologies, tracing their symbolic resonances, material-political conditions and implications, and dress-historical trajectories — slipping in and out of a wavering flux of transformation. 




Her practice has been presented at leading theaters, festivals, and art institutions including:

The National Museum (Oslo) The Munch Museum (Oslo) Dansens Hus (Oslo), Arsenic Theatre (Lausanne), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Oslo) Interstate Projects (NY) NADA Miami (Miami) My Wild Flag (Stockholm) Suprainfinit Gallery (Bucharest) ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts (London) Dansehallerne (Copenhagen) Palmera (Bergen) Femidomen (Nesodden) Impulstanz (Vienna) Sophiensæle (Berlin) to name a few.



External tutor of artistic research, material cutlure, textile and fiber geographies at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, since 2017.

Founded and run the aterlier space mimosa—studio in Oslo, since 2018.

Full CV upon request 


karoline@mimosa.studio
@karolinebakkenlund








dates
2026


23-25.01
30.-31.01
05.02
14.-15.02
27.-28.02
4.-6.03
may (tba) 
27.-28.05








winter









2025
autumn


26.11



10-12.10
15.-16.11

24.11
8.-9.11
9.10


6.-8.09
26.-27. 08


14.08

SWEET SPOT


Premiere: Dansens Hus, Oslo (NO) 
Side Step Festival - Zodiak, Helsinki (FI)
RAS, Sandnes (NO)
MDT, Stockholm(SE)
BIT-Teatergarasjen , Bergen(NO)
Arsenic, Lausanne (CH)
PRING festival, Utrecht (NL)
Rosendal Teater, Trondheim  



Co-producers. Dansens Hus, Oslo (NO), Rosendal Teater (NO), RAS (NO), BIT- teatergarasjen (NO) Arsenic (CH), SPRING (NL) Zodiak (FI) MDT (SE)


Horror Vacui
Solo installation/sculpture series

Svartdalen/Maridalen (NO)

Horklut
Scluptural & artistic reserach
in collaboration with Harald Beharie, Knut Aastad Bråten & Ole Aastad Bråten






HORKLUT LECTURE Research lecture with Ole Aastad Bråten at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.  


MOOD SWINGS
Book Fairs
Available Works, New York (US)
Oslo Book Fair , Oslo  (NO)

BATTY BWOY   premiered in 2021
Co-festival, Ljubljana (SI)  
Festival Euro- scene, Leipzig (DE) 
Skånes Konstforening/Inkonst, Malmø (SE)  

UNDERSANG premiered in 2024
La Batie, Geneve (CH)
SAAL Biennale, Tallinn (EE) 

MOOD SWINGS book launch
Salgshallen, Oslo (NO)