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In her series The Characters, women gain a position in the landscape, and the artist herself seeks the authenticity of history. In these performances, female explorers are located in the Unknown Territories.
While the romantic motifs of the man-wanderer in art have been well documented, in Birkeland project the characters are female. Her heroines move in the pristine territory: in front of them grand exploration looms; beneath them, history is formed.
For the series The Characters, Birkeland received the “The Victor Fellowship” from the Hasselblad Foundation (2012), as well as the Silver in the Norwegian book design competition Årets Vakreste Bøker (2017).
Tonje Bøe Birkeland was born in 1985 in Bergen, Norway. She is a graduate of Bergen Academy of Art & Design, where she obtained the MFA diploma.