Frida Orupabo: On Lies, Secrets and Silence

Works that challenge colonial notions and explore themes of race, gender, identity, family, sexuality, violence and the body.

Leading Norwegian artist and sociologist Frida Orupabo (born 1986) gained prominence in the art world for her evocative digital and physical collages. Orupabo manipulates images, cutting them out, adding and excluding elements, and then reassembling them, suggesting a poignant and phantasmagorical reworking of representational codes. Black bodies, which have been subjected to exploitation throughout history, are often present. On Lies, Secrets and Silence takes its starting point in our most private and intimate space―the home. Newly produced works in the form of collage, video and sculpture focus on the complex relationships contained within the domestic sphere, central to our everyday lives and in the creation of our identity. Familiar environments and relationships suddenly, through subtle changes, transform from safe to strange and uncomfortable. The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm in 2024 and at the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo.