Amber Ablett

My Fathers Left

Date: 04.04 – 04.05.25
Location: Atelier Nord, Olaf Ryes plass 2 (entrance from Sofienberggata)

Please join us for the exhibition opening on Thursday 3rd of April 2025 at 18.00

Amber Ablett’s My Fathers Left is a sound and video installation that explores how the narratives that British, Norwegian and Western society teach us about Black fatherhood shaped and warped the way Amber saw her relationship with her own father, who emigrated from Trinidad, a former British colony, to the UK in the 1960s.

The work is realised in the form of a wooden listening structure based on wooden stands used to hold up boats when they are brought onto dry land, connecting these personal stories, back to the stories of fathers that have travelled across seas.

My Fathers Left was originally commissioned and presented in collaboration with Borealis – a festival for experimental music and BEK – Bergen Center for Electronic Arts.

Amber Ablett is an artist and writer based in Osterøy, Vestlandet. Using performance, text, sound and re-enactment, her work looks at the importance of belonging to how we exist together, with a focus on how our society shapes, reflects, controls and limits our multifaceted identities.

A listening session where it will be possible to listen to the entire sound piece will take place during the exhibition opening from approximately 18.30.

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Photos: Thor Brødreskift.

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In connection with the exhibition, we’ve made a film where Amber Ablett talks about the exhibition project. Watch the film here.