N55 (art collective)

Spaceframe at Holmen in Copenhagen

N55 is a Copenhagen-based Scandinavian art collective which was founded in 1994. The name refers to an address in the Danish capital, Nørre Farimagsgade 55. Over the years, N55 have achieved international recognition for their projects. They have exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Tramway and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Camden Roundhouse, Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, in New York, and at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and at [Wysing Arts Centre,] Cambridge.

All of N55's work product is freely accessible; their books, manuals, manifestos and images can be seen online and are not copyrighted. Most of their written work is accessible in N55 Book.

Members

Members include:

• Ion Sørvin (born 1964)
• Øivind Alexander Slaatto
• Sam Kronick
• Ingvil Aarbakke (1970), died in 2005
• Rikke Luther (born 1970), participant until 2003
• Cecilia Wendt (born 1965), participant until 2003

Examples of work:

Land

In the project they called Land, N55 began to acquire and dedicate small plots of land, from northern Norway to the Californian desert, in less sparsely populated places in Denmark, Holland and Switzerland, and in waste patches of cities such as Chicago, all to public use. On each is erected a steel polyhedral cairn by which the area is declared to belong to "the commons". Anyone may use it as long as it is acknowledged that "Land gives access to land." While N55 has not been subject to serious legal harassment, it has received favourable attention from those concerned to protect the public domain, and from those looking for workable and just alternatives to patents and copyright.

Snail Shell System

In 2002, with support from the Henry Moore Institute, N55 attracted interest when they rolled, through the centre of Leeds, N55's Snail Shell System, a cylindrical polyethylene tank to enable people to move around and live in various environments. That same year, N55's Shop caused some consternation at the Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts; goods were exchanged, borrowed and taken, but no money was involved. The Shop enjoyed further success in 2003 with an exhibition in New York City.

Spaceframe/Micro Dwelling

From 2002, the members of N55 lived in the Spaceframe, mounted on a raft of their own construction, at Holmen in Copenhagen. A truncated tetrahedron, with a floorspace of 20 square metres, the Spaceframe requires no foundations and can be assembled by hand. N55 appreciated the possibilities that modern technology provided for a revival of nomadic living. Their Micro Dwelling is a minimal space in which one person might live, supported on a tripod, thus minimally disturbing the Earth; it can also be floated or submerged. A prototype of which was shown at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge in 2008. Wysing Arts Centre commissioned this prototype and the first N55 Walking House.

References

• N55 Book (Pork Salad Press, 2004)

External links

• N55 website
• Obituary of Ingvil Aarbakke in The Guardian
• Wysing Arts Centre [1]