Anne Beate Hovind – Future Library

Late Night Conversation, hosted by Kristin Maffei

In this week’s episode, Kristin sits down with Anne Beate Hovind, Oslo native and public art professional. Anne is currently putting her expertise in city planning and public art to carry out a project by Katie Paterson called Future Library. For the project, a forest has been planted in Norway. Every year for the next hundred years, one author will contribute a text to an anthology. In 100 years, the fully matured forest will be harvested to provide the paper for these stories, creating a new library.

Listen to the full episode to hear Anne and Kristin discuss the 100-year art project, public art, the future of literature, and the space of the library:

About her personal resonance with the Future Library project, Anne says:

I grew up on a farm and with the farm, there was obviously farmland, but there is also forest. I spent a lot of time in the forest when I was a kid. And then I was supposed to inherit the farm, but when my dad died and I was quite young, I said, ‘No, no, I am an urban woman, I hate this lonely life and all that.’ But it’s in my genes, you know. So when Katie proposed this, I started remembering how disconnected I’ve been to nature, and how slowly also nature develops, and how slowly the forest develops, and how important it is to be reminded of that, especially when you are living in a city… I think a lot of people that get involved in this project somehow are reminded of this, that we’re taking decisions so fast, and we’re kind of disconnected to this slowness, but we’re actually starting to long for it…

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Living and working in Oslo, ANNE BEATE HOVIND has spent the last decade working with art, culture, and theatre across the city. As Project Leader for Bjørvika Utvikling, she initiated Common Lands, a series of temporary interventions across Bjørvika, and Kunsthall Oslo, a permanent center for contemporary art situated in the Barcode. She commissioned Situations/Claire Doherty as curator to develop Slow Space, which includes Katie Paterson’s Future Library. Slow Space is a program that challenges preconceptions about the forms and timespan of conventional public artworks. Representing the property/building owner side, Hovind’s work has focused on the interface between art, culture, and commerce. She has extensive experience with art in public spaces and in large complex building projects like hospitals, city and site developments, and airports. With Future Library, Hovind has led the entire process from developing the commissioner’s overall strategy for the site and the art, to the production of each individual work of art for each individual space.