Miriam Hansen

...And Slumber Might Return. Site specific installation for Hulias, Oslo, 2021. Candles infused with CBD, modified water containers (10 l), tinctures of mugwort, st.johns wort and blue lotus, ultrasonic fog maker, usb fan, rubber foam, beeswax, nail acrylics, extension cord, electric timer, PVC pipe. Photo: Jørn Aagaard
...And Slumber Might Return. Site specific installation for Hulias, Oslo, 2021. Candles infused with CBD, modified water containers (10 l), tinctures of mugwort, st.johns wort and blue lotus, ultrasonic fog maker, usb fan, rubber foam, beeswax, nail acrylics, extension cord, electric timer, PVC pipe. Photo: Jørn Aagaard

Miriam Hansen (b.1988) lives and works in Oslo. She works with installation and sculpture. Her artistic practice emerges from an interest in humanity’s relation to botanical matter, through medical history, cultural heritage and plants as spiritual subjects/deities. Intertwining this historic material with oral traditions and myths, forum-posted trip-reports and the soothing confidence propagated by the wellness industry, her practice looks into questions of healing and legality, as well as morality and the idea of “the holistic” in contemporary society.

(Pollen) - beeswax, pollen collected from Brugmansia, sheet plastic, tape - 2022. Photo: Susann Jamtøy/BABEL
(Pollen) – beeswax, pollen collected from Brugmansia, sheet plastic, tape – 2022. Photo: Susann Jamtøy/BABEL

Through a site-specific approach she works with installations that accommodates for cycles of growth and decay. Her practice is inherently process-based, where material structures are based on cycles of cultivation, foraging, infusion, diffusing and waiting. The term «environment» has become a strategy for mediating habitation of spaces, both in facilitating for living material, but also in how atmospheric altercations plays in to the bodily experience of a space.

States of perpetual relief (cigarette break assemblage) In collaboration with Andreas Olavssønn Rongen. Hand sewn apron, latex, marmorino infused with smoke from home grown virginia tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), dried and cured virginia tobacco. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK
States of perpetual relief (cigarette break assemblage) In collaboration with Andreas Olavssønn Rongen.
Hand sewn apron, latex, marmorino infused with smoke from home grown virginia tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), dried and cured virginia tobacco. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK

For Coast Contemporary, she will perform a collaborative project together with artist Andreas Olavssønn Rongen. Together they have been developing a sculptural logic of infusion and absorption, and will perform the finalization of a sculptural work produced for Velferden by infusing it with home grown Virginia tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) in a purpose built smoking chamber. Envisioned as a durational performance as the evening draws to a close, the performance flirts with social situations of respite, such as a smoke break or an after-work. The project emerges from their converging interests in the intersections between sculpture, architecture and performative expressions, and the collaborative effort of caring for plants they’ve cultivated together in their home, on their balcony and in their studio over the years.

States of perpetual relief Copper pipes, monofilament, tin, silver, latex, opium, poppies (Papaver somniferum). Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK
States of perpetual relief Copper pipes, monofilament, tin, silver, latex, opium, poppies (Papaver somniferum). Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK

Hansen holds a BFA and MFA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Her work has recently been exhibited at The National Museum (2025), The Norwegian Sculptors Society (2025), Kunstnerforbundet (2023), Podium (2023), UKS (2022), Babel (2022), Hulias (2021) and The Astrup Fearnley Museum (2019)."