Portrait

 

Hani by Anne-Karin Furunes

Another piece of art which is included in the Sculpture Festival.

Anne-Karin Furunes is a Norwegian artist known for using perforation technique. Her works are based on photographs, but consist of a perforated black or white canvas (or sheet of metal). Most frequently the image is an extreme close-up of a face. As one approaches the image, it begins to fade and ultimately disappear.

This picture has been up on that wall for a while – perhaps a year? I never heard anyone comment on it. To me it is kind of thought provoking that the place they have chosen for it is on the back wall of our public swimming hall.

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In my childhood, we had some immigrants in my school and neighbourhood, but they all came from other European countries. Most of them from Finland, but also some from Eastern and Southern Europe. There were some language difficulties, but they did not look or dress different. I can only remember one case where religion became an issue. During my first few school years in the 60s we went to school also on Saturdays. Then one day we got a Jewish boy to the class, who could not attend school on Saturdays because that for him was the Sabbath. I don’t remember how they solved it. Extra homework I suppose…

Our society has become a bit more international since then. Women wearing headdresses of Muslim kind for example is no longer an uncommon sight in our streets. It is still an issue in some jobs though, whether employees should be allowed to wear veils or turbans.

A few years ago when I had to go to the emergency room at the hospital, one of the doctors that took care of me was wearing a veil like the one in the picture. I think that was the first time I saw any medical staff wearing it. I have to say in that particular situation it did not matter to me what anyone looked like, only if they could help!

Language can be a real problem though. We get a lot of foreign doctors. I’m sure most of them are excellent at their job, and we should be grateful that they want to come and work here (or else we should find ourselves –even more- short of doctors). Nonetheless, it is problematic when doctor and patient can’t understand what the other is saying. My last experience of that was my visit to the eye clinic recently. There was this doctor with a foreign accent, and he kept asking me something over and over which I just completely failed to understand because of his pronunciation. I think we both felt equally stupid. Luckily there was another doctor who was there on some kind of internship – she stepped in and acted as “interpreter”…

I have no idea where I’m going with all this – nowhere at all really. Looking at the portrait just sent my thoughts out on a ramble…

Probably means it’s a good piece of artwork!