The Winter Solstice is a night exhibition and cultural event happening in Oslo during the longest night of the year, initiated in 2012 by the art practitioner Hanan Benammar. This year, “Vandaler Forening” has been officially created, together with several artists based in Oslo: Hanan Benammar, Martinka Bobrikova, Oscar De Carmen, Mattias Cantzler and designer / engineer Bård Eivind Dahl.

The event aims to gather the local audience around various practices of both emerging and established artists, offering a unique opportunity to experience art works through the night combined with performances, poetry readings, plays and even yoga sessions.

Since its beginning in 2012, the event has gathered over 70 different artists and performers. Many of the works were presented at the Winter Solstice for the first time and later shown again in prominent art exhibitions, such as Høstutstilling or Land Art Mongolia Biennale. Our event therefore functions clearly as a space of “pro-ject”: as throwing something towards the future.

We especially put an effort in highlighting experimental and time-based practices. Even if the exhibition is open only during one night, many of the works demand to stay in the space for some time.

The Winter Solstice is a roaming event. Indeed, each year we aim to engage with a new space, offering the artists and the public an other context to experiment. The previous years, we have been exhibiting at ANX/Pnek and Norsk Billedhogger Forening. The artists exhibiting had material support from these institutions, as well as Dans for Voksne.