In the studio gallery, Kohta will be continuing the series of exhibitions by younger Nordic artists throughout 2025.

In January and February, Oscar Eriksson Furunes (Norway, 1991, lives in Stjørdal and Malmö) will present his installation Night Watch (2023), for which he was awarded the 2024 Autumn Exhibition Prize, a prestigious acknowledgement of his participation in the annual survey exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo.

The jury emphasised how the work ‘brings an unknown story to light, which stands in sharp contrast to the story the work itself tells of a life lived in hiding and takes the viewer on a journey back in time, serving us a tale of shame, fear and oppression’.

The installation consists of owl-shaped perfume lamps (in the version for Kohta there are 44 of those), which were used as a warning signal in gay bars in the Netherlands from the 1920s until the 1960s. Turning on the owl-lamps was a known code in the community to make the customers aware of strangers or police entering the bars. In the installation, the owl lamps turn on gradually one by one and change the space from darkness to a dim glow. Towards the end of the cycle, the owl lamps synchronise in a morse code carrying a hidden message.

Eriksson Furunes holds an MFA from the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. His work is currently on display at the Malmö Art Museum, as part of the group exhibition ‘Setting the Tone of the Exhibition: The Anatomy of Exhibition Openings’ (curated by Jacob Fabritius) and in 2025 he will also have solo exhibitions at the Photographic Centre Peri in Turku, Finland, and at Galleri Arnstedt in Båstad, Sweden.

Realised with support from the Nordic Cultural Fund and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.