Abduction put seven video works outdoors in the park at Kontraskjæret, a stone's throw from Akershus fortress in Oslo, where they ran through the autumn dark for anyone walking past. It was curated by Glafira Severianova, with Ivan Galuzin as co-curator, as part of BOA in Public Space Program — the public-space initiative of Billedkunstnerne i Oslo og Akershus.
The exhibition asks what is being stolen or abducted from our lives. Severianova's own list: quiet, darkness, nature, self-confidence, truth — offered as a starting point rather than an answer, since the works pose questions instead of settling them.
The selection deliberately mixes generations of work, with pieces made in 1991, 2008, 2016 and 2020 shown side by side rather than only the newest — a small argument against the habit of reserving older video art for retrospectives and biennials.
Showing video outdoors at the coldest time of year was framed as a radical experiment: the lit screens as beacons in a public park, meeting an audience that does not visit galleries. During installation the organisers spoke with passers-by who said they were embarrassed to enter a gallery because they understood little of contemporary art, and who were seeing video art for the first time.
Abduction is the third and final part of a trilogy. The first two parts, Induction (2015) and Deduction (2016), were shown in Murmansk, Russia.
