Atopia comes from the Greek noun a-topon, which means without a place. The name describes the conceptual core of Atopia in addition to its special focus on film and video art.
Atopia is an experiment, a research project, a laboratory for film and video art, and a room for connections, collaborations, as well as confrontations.
Atopia was founded in June 2003 by the following four artists:
Farhad Kalantary is a visual artist born in Tabriz, Iran, 1962. He studied film and video art in San Francisco State University (BA, 1992) and San Francisco Art Institute (MFA, 1996). He works with film, video and installations, and he is based in Oslo, Norway.
Working primarily with the non-narrative and the poetics of speed, Kalantary’s works explore the sense of space and time, the relationship of sound and image along with the relationship of screens in a multi-screen environment.
His works have been shown in various international film festivals as well as in galleries and museums in the US and Europe. Many of his works are in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and the Arts Council Norway.
He was the founder and co-ordinator of TopFloor: a workshop for film, video and digital art (98-01), in Trondheim and he is the co-founder and leader of the project room Atopia (2003-) in Oslo, Norway.
Still from Migrations, a four screen video installation, size: varies, 2005-08.
Other artists become involved with Atopia periodically. Greg Pope worked with us in 2006-7, and Linn Lervik has been working with us since 2007, and Nina schjønsby since 2008.
Through its various projects Atopia has organized exhibitions, screenings, forums and seminars as well as publications, inside and outside of Norway. We have created a grass-roots network of artists surrounding Atopia and have become a base for information and advice for artists working with film and video in Norway.
During the past 6 years Atopia has developed into a professional center for film/video art in Oslo, and it is now an umbrella for several ongoing projects focused on artists’ film and video works.
Coordinator: Farhad Kalantary
Assistant and Project Leader for “Traffic” project: Linn Lervik
Project Leader for “Retrospective Exhibition” project: Nina schjønsby
with the Sponsorship of:
Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond Prosjektstøtte (2005)