Program
YouTube
Instagram
Facebook
The artists of the Norwegian collective “Abjectified Project” have been performing together in various constellations in more or less planned drag art contexts since 2018. They are all united by drag performance and a penchant for repulsive aesthetics. As part of the “Moving Identities” residency program, they use theories from medicine, sociology, psychology and linguistics to research the abject - things that cause disgust and aversion. Dealing with the abject helps to recognise injustices and marginalising practices and to question them using artistic means.
In April, the Abjectified Project collective will be in residence at HELLERAU as part of the three-year EU exchange programme “Moving Identities“.
In the Open Studio, Abjectified Project will give an insight into their research process and the artistic project they are working on.
Registration at: schallenberg@hellerau.org
Biography
Åshild Løvvig (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist with a BA in Acting and an MA in Linguistics, focusing on storytelling, performance and embodied cognition. She is recognised as Norway's most experienced drag king and masculine drag art performer. Her work explores gender and expressive fluidity and combines academic approaches, film, queer art and storytelling. In the experimental drag scene, she explores draglesque, drag thing, posthumanism and critical perspectives on (cis)femininity and queer intersectionality. She is also committed to neurodiversity and the visibility of disability in the arts.
Jens Martin (they/them) has been working with various art forms since 2013, primarily drag, dance and DJing, and is now a freelance performance artist and project initiator. With dance training at the KHiO, Jens Martin creates spaces for queer performance art and makes underrepresented aesthetic traditions visible. In the seminar “Becoming the Abject” (2020), Jens Martin combines the concept of the “abject” with drag “filth”. Romantic ideals increasingly characterise Jens Martin's work, while the focus is increasingly on the artistic process and self-generated material. Art is currently created in the interplay of movement, text, visual media and performative presence.
Katinka Steensgaard (she/her) has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Applied Theatre Studies (OsloMet). In her master's thesis, she researched drag king aesthetics and experiences in dealing with masculinity. She works as a theater educator, director, actress and drag artist. She has been shaping the Norwegian drag scene since 2013 and has been involved in projects such as Open Drag Stage, BOIS Workzone, Oslo Drag Festival and Oslo Dragskole. Her work is strongly inspired by underground currents such as club kid tradition and abject theory.
Peter David Ramthun (he/him) is a drag artist and nurse. With the show series “Abjectified” (2023/2024), he shaped the abject discourse in Norway and laid the foundation for this collective. His nursing work has given him in-depth knowledge of bodily functions, anatomy, organs and medical contexts. For seven years, he has been combining this knowledge with drag and performance, examining concepts of beauty and the boundary between aesthetics and imposition, while also using camp as a queer technique of expression.
Sofie Bøttger Bratberg (she/her) is a performance artist who works with drag, movement, voice and text to explore the diversity of gender and sexuality. She is particularly interested in the gender-neutral - as a mixture of genders or genderless space. From autumn 2025, she will complete her bachelor's degree in screenwriting and is planning a script on lesbian tradition. Drag has characterised her artistic work for seven years. Queer art for children and young people is particularly close to her heart.
