Why do we make books about art?Talk
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The event Why Do We Make Books About Art? marks the completion of the books accompanying the first five exhibitions in SOLO OSLO. Each exhibition has been accompanied by a comprehensive publication, and we now invite you to discussions about art and exhibition publications. In this digital age — why does the paper-based format remain so central?
In the first of the two discussions, artist Apichaya Wanthiang and graphic designer Anette L'Orange, together with senior curator at MUNCH Tominga O'Donnell, reflect on how artistic processes are translated into book format. How do design choices, language and structure influence the reading experience, and what role does the exhibition publication play for artists and curators?
In the second conversation, art historian Mathias Danbolt, curator and editor Therese Möllenhoff, and Heidi Bale Amundsen, editor at MUNCH Publishing, meet for a discussion on how the needs for dissemination, documentation, and communication come together in the exhibition publication and shape the exhibition's impact on the public and art history.
Apichaya (Piya) Wanthiang holds a BA from Sint-Lukas, Brussels and an MA in Fine Arts from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB). Piya constructs environments in order to study how they influence our perceptions, behaviours and interactions. She works mainly with painting and installations comprising light, sound and text. With her work she aims to address the audience’s bodies directly, activating somatic knowledge through different senses. Piya has exhibited widely in Norway. She has exhibited widely in Norway, among others she's had solo exhibitions at the Vigeland Museum (Oslo), the Munch Museum (Oslo), Kristiansand Kunsthall (Kirstiansand). Internationally she's exhibited at Storage (Bangkok, Thailand), Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Buffalo, US) and Gammel Strand (Copenhagen, Denmark). She worked part time as Assistant Professor at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, and the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD) in Bergen. She has been on the board of LNM, the Norwegian Painters Association and of UKS, The Young Artists’ Society.
Anette L’orange is a graphic designer (MA/KhiO) with a particular focus on art publications, exhibition design and colour schemes for major museums. Anette prefers to work at the intersection of graphic form, space and communication, with the aim of creating holistic visual experiences that support both the artworks and the audience's encounter with them. L'orange has run the design studio Blunderbuss since 2004 and has extensive experience in developing publications and visual identities for exhibitions, including colour concepts that contribute to both the atmosphere and orientation in the exhibitions. L'orange is particularly interested in publications as a space for communication and has received a number ofdesign awards for her work.
Dr Tominga O’Donnell is a Senior Curator and Head of Contemporary Art at MUNCH. They curated the programme Munchmuseet on the Move (2016–2019), adopting a queer curatorial approach and commissioning a range of off-site art projects. At MUNCH, O’Donnell is the curator of several solo exhibitions including Camille Henrot, Sandra Mujinga and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, two editions of the MUNCH Triennale, and a number of commissioned works in MUNCH's performance program.
Mathias Danbolt is a professor of art history at the University of Copenhagen. Danbolt researches the intersections between art history and colonial history in a Nordic context, with a recent focus on memory politics, memory culture and monuments in public spaces. Danbolt is the leader of the research project Moving Monuments (2022-26) and his latest publication is the monograph Tropaganda: Art, Colonialism and Battles over History (Strandberg Publishing, 2025).
Heidi Bale Amundsen is an editor at MUNCH Publishing, where she works with fiction, non-fiction and image-based books on art. Amundsen is trained in aesthetics and art history and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oslo with her dissertation Perceiving Structural Unity in Photobooks (2019). She has extensive experience as a critic specialising in contemporary art and photography and served as chair of the Norwegian Critics’ Association from 2019 to 2022.
