Lecture on the Weather

Facts

• The public dialogue will be held in Norwegian. We expect the audience to take part in both dialogue and performance, since both activities are interconnected.
• Public dialogue is an open, facilitated format that uses active listening and personal reflection to explore complex or conflict-laden topics in an inclusive setting. The methodology was developed by the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue, who facilitates this event in collaboration with the National Museum.
• Global Oslo Music is a curator and an artist network (2008-), which profiles a variety of cultural expressions through new productions developed in collaboration with artists from around the world.
• The artists participating in the event come from backgrounds including music, visual art, textiles, anthropology, and activism. Many work with participatory formats, improvisation, and interdisciplinary expressions. What unites them is a strong engagement with questions of identity, belonging, minority experience, and social justice.

About the artists

Jannik Abel – artist. Abel divides her time between creating from nature, in nature, and being out in the streets with a camera, documenting social movements and sites of injustice.
Her artistic practice can be summed up in the phrase: “Everything I do feels like a quiet protest.”

Kaveh Mahmudiyan is an Iranian-Kurdish-Norwegian musician and percussionist, specializing in the Iranian instrument tombak. He explores the interplay between traditional rhythms and contemporary music.

Sudeshna Bhattacharya is deeply immersed in the rich tradition of North Indian classical music, specializing in the nineteen-string instrument Sarod.
She started learning the Sarod at the age of four, earning the distinction of being a Gandabandh disciple of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan from the age of eight.

Ibou Cissokho is a Norwegian-Senegalese griot, a traditional and modern kora player who has made a name for himself in recent years. He has collaborated with, among others, Karpe, Cissokho System, Tilibo, Bugge Wesseltoft, and Emilie Nicolas. He works actively and passionately, mixing traditional African music with new musical expressions.

Evelina Petrova is an Oslo-based accordionist and composer whose work blends Russian folk, classical music, klezmer, and avant-garde improvisation. She collaborates widely across music, dance, and theater.

Ombeline Chardes is a Paris-born composer, violinist/violist, and conductor based in Oslo. Her work explores the intersection of her diverse musical influences – from chamber music to large ensembles – blending classical training with contemporary inspiration.

Samir M’kadmi is an artist and curator with roots in Tunisia, France, and Norway. He works experimentally with sound, video, and new technologies, combining artistic exploration with a strong focus on social critique. His projects address issues of discrimination, exclusion, and oppression, often drawing on postcolonial and feminist theory. Through this approach, M’kadmi creates works that are not only visually and sonically innovative, but also intellectually challenging.

Aidan Moesby is an artist, curator, and writer bringing a nuanced and insightful approach to the emotional context of working with climate change and the deep interconnectedness between the natural and social environments. Through varied mediums, Moesby engages with the human condition, offering both a critical perspective and a gesture of care. Harnessing the metaphor of weather systems, his work invites us to consider how we navigate the relationship between well-being and technology, and how art can offer solace, understanding, and connection.

Michelle A. Tisdel (Ph.D.) is a social anthropologist (Harvard 2006), researcher, and curator. She is the founder of Lift Every Voice (2020), a documentation project on anti-racism in Norway. Tisdel’s research interests include Afrodiasporic cultural heritage, visual storytelling, and belonging. She is researching the African American artist, author, and activist Ruth Ann Reese, and is academically responsible for Black History Month Norway.

Tebrizli Memmed Rza is an Azerbaijani author, musician, and shoemaker. He is a political refugee who came to Norway in 2003 after being imprisoned and tortured three times for his activism for an independent South Azerbaijan and for the rights of the Turkish language and culture. The Iranian authorities accused him of separatism for defending his mother tongue, which they sought to suppress in favor of Persian.

Today, Tebrizli runs shoemaker workshops in Oslo and Askim. He has published the documentary novel The Last Night: Escape from South Azerbaijan to Norway (2015), which tells the story of his own flight. The Footsteps is part of the short story collection Eaglet, translated into both English and Norwegian.

As a musician, he is a recognized performer of Azerbaijani folk music. He founded the group Savalan in Norway, which performs traditional and contemporary international music with a strong political message of freedom. Tebrizli uses his art to keep Azerbaijani identity alive in Norway.

Lotte Konow Lund (b. 1967) is a visual artist and professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Department of Art and Craft. She has previously held solo exhibitions at several Norwegian art museums, most recently the major exhibition What She Said at KODE Art Museum, Bergen (2025).
Konow Lund has published the books On Art – 25 Artist Conversations (Forlaget Oktober, 2021) and The Diaries 2014–2016 (Teknisk Industri, 2016).