Tvillingsong (Intertwined) is an art project of Anne Tveit Knutsen, which consists of a documentary film and a book. It’s under the series Am I too loud?, which has been the artist’s main headline since 2012.
The film Tvillingsong follows a pair of mentally disabled twin sisters and portraits their unique relationship and communication.
The content of the book is based on audio recording and conversations made during the development and production of the film, together with drawings by Eli, one of the twins. The book is published by Kinakaal Forlag.
The exhibition contains some of the visual materials from the film and the book.
This exhibition explores the topic of how visual arts integrate with lives not just of those who are highly educated and eminently intellectual but also of those who are innately in disadvantage such as mentally or physically disabled individuals. Unlike many other artworks on the same topic, one does not find any trace of condescendence or philanthropy in Anne’s works. Instead, the artist was always trying to understand and empathise with the twins with handicap as her equals and friends. By doing so, the audience are also invited into the otherwise cocooned inner world of the twins. Art, again, displayed its power in supporting the fragile in a way charity could not, by inviting them back into the society where they were, intentionally or not, exiled from.
25 February 2022 ‘Tvillingsong’ (Intertwined) was screened simultaneously at Fosun Foundation Centre in Shanghai and Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen. Afterwards the director of the film Anne Tveit Knutsen and psychologist Gro M. Moldstad had an in-depth conversation Shanghai based with writer btr and artist, curator Chen Yun, on the perception of time, the power of artist’s films and artist’s books, the value of vulnerability and so much more. Link in bio for the full conversation in Chinese.
