Maren Dagny Juell is an Oslo based artist working with moving image and installation. Her subjects are alienated, filled with doubt and with a yearning for control and personal development. Maren is interested in the borders of subjectivity and individual autonomy. This is approached with narrative text often collected from online forums and tutorials. The works seeks to embody an investigation into the reality of appearances, surfaces and definition of visual space aided by technology.
Maren studied in London and has an MA from Chelsea College of Art. Recently exhibitions has been at Stavanger Art Museum and Papay Gyro Nights (Orkney and Hong Kong) amongst others. She won an award for video at BEERS contemporary (London) in 2013 and was included in Lights On Norwegian Contemporary Art at the Astrup Fearnely Museum in Oslo in 2008.
Video: Maren Dagny Juell, Tutorial#6: It’s our ability to create stylish meals that separates us from the animals (Bear Grylls)
Tutorial#6 refers to instructional videos by survivalists. Three men meet and have a conversation made up by fragmented quotations collected from instructional tutorial videos and on-line forums about survival. During the meeting, they all make a flower out of gaffer tape, zip-ties and para-cord.
The work was initially made for an exhibition related to the tapestry weaver Frida Hansen (1855-1931) and also includes sculptures. Juell was interested in the gender roles assigned to textile craft and the purpose of these activities (craft clubs- craft as therapy). Her project is a fictional account of themale dominated culture of survivalist preparing for the apocalypse.
