Manifesto

Manifesto is a fictional story of an art school, which on the surface functions as an institute of fine art in a large, consolidated university. Secretly however, the institute operates as an autonomous, experimental school with its own rules for teaching, evaluation, reporting, planning, admissions and management.

For example, a ”pseudo-dean” acts as if he is the head of the institute, while students and staff have elected another, unofficial rector. Courses are announced on the digital learning platform, all the while other, secret projects, which only students and teachers know about, are carried out and presented analogously only. Since preparing food at school is not allowed, the students have constructed a kitchen hidden inside a wall, and since they feel that art education should be open for everyone, they invite people into the school undercover.

Ane Hjort Guttu (b. 1971) is an artist and a filmmaker living in Oslo. She works in a variety of media, but has in recent years mainly concentrated on film and video works, ranging from investigative documentary to poetic fiction. Her work often contains different forms of power analysis, whether this power unfolds in schools, in the urban landscape or in cultural institutions. A recurrent theme in Guttu's practice is the political potential of art and artists. Guttu is also active as a curator and writer, and she is a professor at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Ane Hjort Guttu is guest in the second episode of Marte Vold's podcast Vakkert arbeid (in Norwegian). Click here for more information

Watch Ane Hjort Guttu in conversation with Kim Gunnar Helsvig and Per Anders Aas (both professors at Oslo Met).