HEGE IREN AASDAL: SOFT SPLIT
EXHIBITION
17.01.2026 - 15.02.2026
Opening: 17.01.2026 KL 12:00
Workshop: 17.01.2026 kl 14:00
Hege Iren Aasdal is one of the few in Norway holding a journeyman's certificate as a basket maker specialising in split materials. Her practice begins not with the basket, but with the act of harvest — a temporal negotiation between maker, material, and landscape.
Each stick collected is a connection to history, to those who before her walked the same paths and tended the same land. It is about more than baskets and techniques — it is about following the seasons, about knowing when the time is right, about harvesting with thought not only for the one basket, but for all those to come for years ahead. A constant dance with nature, an eternal search for materials.
"The harvesting and processing of materials is my most important task and it forms the foundation for everything I do and make. This connection that the materials create between me and the cultural landscape and history is much of what I wish to convey. It's not only about baskets and techniques for weaving, but about how people tended the cultural landscape, what they used from what exists around us, how one can follow the seasons."
In this exhibition Aasdal wished to honour the materials, celebrated for their inherent beauty and their capacity to hold memory, place, and practice. Each stick has its story. Each basket sings its song.
FILM
The exhibition included the short film Mjuke røtter / Soft Roots, made by filmmaker Silje Ensby (b. Oslo), a visual artist educated at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design. Over the past decade, Ensby has worked with film in close collaboration with traditional craftspeople who possess unique knowledge of natural materials and traditional craft techniques. Soft Roots centred on Aasdal's work and process, documenting the intimate relationship between maker, material, and landscape that lies at the heart of her practice.
