Reconstructing Fryseriet (The Freezer)
Elisabeth Brun
Uwe Brunner
Gusztáv Hámos
Ivar Kjellmo
Géza Kulcsár
Bettina Katja Lange
Rune Mikkelborg
Katja Pratschke
NODES is an international media art collective founded by Elisabeth Brun (NO) and Katja Pratschke (DE) in 2023. Emerging from the artistic research project Nyksund Reloaded, the collective explores how archives, moving images, XR technologies and spatial practices can reactivate cultural heritage and generate new forms of public engagement. Bringing together filmmakers, architects, media artists, sound artists, 3D artists and researchers from Norway, Germany, Denmark and Hungary, NODES develops long-term, site-specific artistic research through exhibitions, workshops and participatory projects. The collective collaborates with institutions including Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, the University of Oslo, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Goethe-Institut Oslo and LIAF, while building an international network of place-based collaborations across Europe and Japan.
SOAP (Uwe Brunner / Bettina Katja Lange) is an architectural collective working at the intersection of digital media, critical spatial practice, and documentary theatre. Their research-driven practice explores the social and cultural implications of technology, investigating how digital mediation shapes spatial conditions and forms of living together. Their work has been presented at institutions including Onassis Stegi (Athens), MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Los Angeles), La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), Centre d'Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona), CPH:DOX, ETH Zürich, the Goethe-Institut Beijing, and the Segal Center (New York). Uwe Brunner is an educator and researcher at the University of Innsbruck and co-founder of the Vienna Architecture Summer School. Bettina Katja Lange is a scenographer whose work has been presented at institutions including the Vienna State Opera, Munich Kammerspiele, Volksbühne Berlin, Zürich Opera, PS122 New York, the Wooster Group, and La MaMa Theatre.
Reconstructing Fryseriet investigates how the making of archives can become a spatial experience, and how an old fish freezer can be reconstructed as a locus of memory, exchange, and cultural production – first digitally, and ultimately as a physical site for artistic production, research and public exchange.
The project builds on Nyksund Reloaded, a research initiative that since 2022 has recovered, digitised, and reactivated the scattered archive of the International Nyksund Project (INP, 1984–92), a pioneering European youth project established in Northern Norway by students of social pedagogy, architecture, and environmental technology from Technische Universität - West Berlin, together with local residents. Developed in the abandoned fishing village of Nyksund, the project explored ecological building, youth agency, renewable energy, and alternative ways of living amid growing environmental awareness. Although recognized and awarded by the EU for its contributions to environmental and cultural heritage, it came to an abrupt end.
Convinced that the ambitions of the INP remain highly relevant today, Nyksund Reloaded has, in collaboration with former participants, developed an archive of films, photographs, reports, interviews, and artworks. Central to this is Fryseriet, a fish processing plant abandoned through centralisation policies and infrastructural change. Today, as Nyksund transforms through tourism and gentrification, Fryseriet remains one of the last experimental spaces. Exposed to salt, wind, and time, the building continues to decay, yet remains open to artists and locals, hosting exhibitions, concerts, and informal gatherings.
Our aim is to preserve Fryseriet as a local cultural space and international platform for exchange. In the long term, we envision Fryseriet as a living archive housing the ongoing research and reactivation of the INP, while providing an infrastructure for future research, artistic production and transdisciplinary exchange.