Maritea Dæhlin is an artist who works and lives in Norway and Mexico. She is particularly interested in behavioral patterns, emotions, rituals and meetings. Her work ranges from theatre, video, performance, sound and stage text. Her artistry is characterized by the playful, non-linear and at times absurd.
“Søvn” is the theme that binds the entire sound work together. Sleep as a metaphor for the place where we are so safe that we can let go completely, where we give space to our subconscious and our dreams. At the same time, sleep is a theme that contains the opposite: being awake, so awake that you continuously read yourself and the world you are a part of or are surrounded by.
There are many of us who struggle with sleep, who wake up at night with thoughts that don’t let go and that weigh so much more than during the day, both due to sometimes (not to say all the time) being high on life and work, high on adrenaline, but perhaps also for darker reasons, past events and experiences that can make it more difficult to give in to sleep.
Is it possible to allow yourself to just be, without being so alert that you are constantly reading your surroundings? If so, is this something that everyone has the opportunity to do? There are always some of us who are awake, especially out among people, in a theatre, at an airport, at a party or on a quiet road at night – but also among those of us who are alone and trying to sleep.
In connection with the 30th anniversary in 2022, Nordic Black Theater invited three younger artists connected to the theater to create their own artistic projects. One of these artists is Maritea Dæhlin, who herself was a student at Nordic Black Express in the period 2007–2010. Maritea wanted to invite institutions with different expressions and art forms, and to which she feels a closeness in her own artistry, and consequently invited Black Box theater and Kunstnernes Hus. This is how the project has become a collaboration with these three institutions.
