Transcript for Episode 171 – Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Munch Museum, Tominga Hope O’Donnell (Oslo, Norway)

Recorded April 15, 2021
Published May 11, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/senior-curator-of-contemporary-art-at-the-munch-museum-tominga-odonnell-oslo-norway/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Could you please pronounce your name correctly for me

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 0:14
Tominga Hope O’Donnell

Matthew Dols 0:16
Currently you work at the is I always mispronounce monk monk has what’s the correct pronunciation?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 0:23
That was perfect. It’s a museum dedicated to the work of Edvard MOOC, it was known as the MOOC museum. And it’s now recently been rebranded as MOOC with capital letters, because the museum is about to open new premises on the waterfront of Barbican in Oslo.

Matthew Dols 0:42
And your position there is is curator correct.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 0:45
senior curator of contemporary art. Okay.

Matthew Dols 0:48
I’ve always wondered something totally random thing when it comes to like a private museum like this, where it’s like, named after an artist. How do you only exhibit the artists? Do you exhibit contemporary works influenced by the artists? Like how does that sort of translate to continuing to have contemporary exhibitions?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 1:08
It’s a good question. I mean, firstly, it’s actually a public museum. Because the day of the Nazi invasion of Norway, Edvard monk gave all his work to the Oslo City Council. So it’s formerly in Council museum. So we’re owned by Oslo, city council. And of course, there are a number of these museums that are dedicated to the work of a single artists monk is actually part of a network of several of these museums all over the world. And people do it differently. But I think increasingly, we can see a tendency where not only does one want to put the artists whose collection you are looking after in conversation with other artists, whether solo exhibitions, or in a larger group exhibition, one also wants to incense, preserve their legacy, by including contemporary artists in the programming. And with the museum in particular, is also home to three other collections, including one buy it off Stan, who was a great collector of monk, but also a supporter of young artists. So that kind of legacy of Ross tension provides the impetus or the excuse if you like to work with contemporary artists. So that’s where my position comes in. I don’t actually work on Edward Moore couldn’t work on the collection. But I work on the contemporary art program,

Matthew Dols 2:31
I actually did an entire series of work based on his position of females having like the red, the white, and the black outfits, and all that kind of stuff in the different psychological things. So I’ve actually been influenced by his work quite greatly in my own work. So I love him.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 2:48
Wonderful. You have to come to Oslo when we open if you have you been to the museum.

Matthew Dols 2:52
I have never been to Norway at all. But there is a plan for me to be there at least once this year. So

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 3:00
yes, fantastic. You’ll have to come. I mean, what happens with a new museum is that suddenly there are 13 floors as opposed to one ground floor with limited amount of space to show the collection. So now, I mean, the collection is huge 1000s of works, but it means that there were several floors dedicated to the work of Edvard monk. And then in addition, artists such as you’re describing, who were influenced by monk, like Tracey Emin, contemporary artists and group shows that contextualize mukhin his time, but then also shows that of Oslo based artists, young emerging artists, somewhat more established artists, so we can provide you with a huge package when you finally come when we finally open.

Matthew Dols 3:45
Fabulous, yeah, we’re actually working in collaboration with Koons center and a Norgay. Oh,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 3:52
yeah. Well done.

Matthew Dols 3:53
Did I pronounce that correctly?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 3:55
Pretty good.

Matthew Dols 3:55
I tried. But I sort of practiced that. So. Okay, one of the first things I want to know about people because it’s not just about monkey, it’s about you. So how did you even get into this? So like, were your parents creative? Like your childhood? Like, how did you get to being a curator?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 4:14
In many ways, it’s both because of and despite my parents, so my parents met at art school in Leeds, in the late 1960s, early 70s. He continued working as an artist and also as a professor at the Art Academy in Oslo. And she went from being a textile artist to becoming a curator. So I’ve pretty much grown up in this. I think I went to my first documentary in 1982 when I was in a prom, but at the same time, as the money question comes in, my parents very much encouraged me to pick a much safer career. So actually, they will go and study economics, as I really do even like you cannot annoying good at economics. So the kind of trade don’t have words that I studied history and economics were supposed to do that when I applied to Oxford and they very kindly took one look at my economics skills and offered me history and politics, which I did. And then this is quite Securitas route. I was recruited to join law firm after my BA. And I thought, Well, that sounds like a sensible career and joined this sort of magic circle law firm had two years of law, but at the same time, I felt really kind of under stimulated. So I did art history at the same time. And the joys of on Saturday, being able to go over to the Victoria and Albert Museum where the National Art library is and beautiful library when I moved to London. So I basically did a sort of BA in art history at the same time as doing law. And then I started working as a lawyer. And I’m sure it’s not dreary for everyone. But I think if you have something else that you that you really love doing, then it became such I was like working Monday to Friday nine to five in order to get the time to do to do the sort of artwork. So my parents are very supportive at that point. Because I was I remember being in tears and lunch with my dad and just being like, I hate it so much. And he just didn’t want you to stop them, and wills and the money. And here’s I will sorta Don’t worry. And so I left after a year of being a lawyer and started finishing the art history and then went on to kind of residency in a foundation of contemporary art in Accra, and use that experience and part of my application to the Royal College about the curating program there. Got in, and then it’s sort of 2006 to 2008. And then I was kind of on the track if you like, because I graduated in 2008, which was the financial crisis. And suddenly all of the jobs that had been promised with this prestigious curating degree just disappeared. So wait for the white chapel for the Whitechapel Gallery in London for a half year. And then decided that this was the point at which I should probably pursue what I wanted to do, which was a PhD. And then during that I got a job working with one of my former colleagues at the Whitechapel, that MK gallery, where he then became the director, Antony Spyro. And he was doing some research into Norwegian artists and needed someone who could kind of connect into the Norwegian scene. And then we did a huge retrospective, the only retrospective of Norwegian artists had it on push magnate who died relatively recently. And then that was, in a sense my track into working more sort of full time when I finally finished my PhD. But all of this is sort of a little bit fortuitous. I mean, I, to be honest, I never would have thought of the monk Museum at this point in like 2014 15 is somewhere where one would go for cutting edge contemporary art, because it had this vibe of being a place where you look after the collections as a Norwegian school person, you’d always you would go there, you’d see it, you take tourists you came there, you almost don’t realize, you know, the wonders of what you have immediately on your doorstep. And so when my now boss phoned me and encouraged me to apply for a job, but the magnesium, I sort of thought, whoa, Well, okay, because I was one needed experience applying for jobs anyway. And they did apply for it. And I didn’t get it. But I was so enthusiastic about the potential, like contemporary art at the museum in my interview, and sort of to the point was bouncing up and down on the chair. And they had to tell me to sit still, that they created this other project about contemporary art, and taking the move from the current location at tilian in Oslo, and English mile down the road to the waterfront to be able to Vika, and basically gave me free freedom to just to conceive that project was a four year project. And that was the start of more chemistry on the move, which is how I got the positioner. Sorry, that was a very long winded tale of how we got there,

Matthew Dols 9:13
perfectly acceptable. All of our journeys are all sort of circuitous in many ways. It’s perfectly fine. You then work at a museum, which has this as you sort of reference like this idea of like looking at history, because it’s named after monk, but you’re involved in contemporary work. So like, when you’re talking about that, how do you? How do you find people that are necessarily artists that are referencing that because I would imagine they don’t necessarily, like put it in their CV like work, influenced by or whatever it looks like? How do you choose artists that you feel like somehow speak in the same language are influenced by the work of Edward monk?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 9:55
Well, I think in many ways, the work of Edward mungkin and Norwegian context is a bit of a curse. For young artists, so I was very clear when devising mcmissile. On the move, it was much more about the neighborhood of the museum and the role the museum has played in this very diverse neighborhood of so called Old Oslo. And it was also about the museum as a large institution within landscape with lots of other smaller and medium sized institutions, and how the museum could behave in a neighborly fashion towards these institutions acknowledged important work that they were doing so in very many ways. I had to say some of the first meetings with the artists I was working with, please disregarded and a lot of them wanted to I mean, the final project that we didn’t want to say on the move takes its title from a work by Edvard monk, summer night by the beach, and it’s a film cabaret by Danish artists, you Kishan a stripper, Maria Bergdorf, and it’s beautiful kind of 26 minute long film cabaret, which then uses advanced title but then takes the history of cons hum bars, which are now sort of container park in the fjord, but used to be this wonderful summer cabaret stage. They invited their queer community in Copenhagen to perform these roles, and also looked at the sort of maybe the alienating lifestyle, it could be to live in these new, very fancy luxury apartments that sort of now surround the new museum building on the waterfront. So the connections, the very loose connections that Edward walked the artists, but it’s fundamentally connected to the locality of Oslo, and where the museum is situated.

Matthew Dols 11:38
So then, of course, the next question, because I know a lot of listeners are practicing artists, that one of the things is, of course, how do artists get on your radar? So like, how do you even find artists? I mean, I’m sure there are obviously publications and websites and things like that you follow? But like beyond that, because those are not always easy to get in? Let’s say?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 11:58
Yeah, it’s an interesting question, which I think is a lot more pertinent now in a pandemic, because previously, it was based on stuff you saw, I mean, I think my most useful tool if you like, and my trainers, my Nikes that I walk around in because you cover so much ground is looking at stuff,

Matthew Dols 12:17
and going to art fairs and things like this. Yeah,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 12:20
not so much art fairs, to be honest, but more like biennials other forms of perennials, documenters, galleries, big public institutions, smaller institutions, I think I was quite lucky. I mean, I did conceive it that way. It was really important for this museum on the move to be anchored in locality, and for younger artists in Oslo to feel like the Mont museum was also their museum. So I didn’t have to walk very far. I mean, I did cover a hell of a lot of territory within a particular area of Oslo, and had every Friday would go on studio visits. Trying to be very sort of open about this wasn’t specifically kind of an instrumental studio isn’t it wasn’t about this is for a shame. But this is more kind of general research. And I want to know what’s happening in the city that I live in. And I think it’s our duty as curators to, to keep abreast of what’s happening on our doorsteps, not to kind of get removed and disappear into the citadels of the sort of large museum. So I did a lot of that. And, of course, I was helped by my own network, and also the fact I have to acknowledge this, that my father was professor in the art academy for 37 years. So is a complete luxury. And I’m very aware of the privilege of being able to go to someone like him and say, Hey, can you think of anyone who’s graduated in the last 35 years, who works with this, and also artists, I mean, I think maybe artists should be aware of is that curators talk to each other a lot. So even if you’re meeting with one particular curator doesn’t lead to anything, then that person will talk to another person and say, I’ve met this, you know, this great person today who, who’s not really the work isn’t particularly relevant for the show that I’m working on, or the project that I’m involved in, but you know, your thing, whatever it’s about, maybe you should look at this person’s work. Yeah. So that’s basically the how I try and do research now. And we’re working on a series of Contemporary Art digital shorts, at the moment to have something to offer audiences when they can’t physically go to the museum, because all all museums and galleries in Oslo are closed at the moment. And then I’m working with a couple of younger curators, and they’re like saying that they’re rounding the internet. I mean, so many times and they’re getting almost like square eyes from just watching a screen every day and you find people from the strangers ways, I mean, Instagram, and then linking and linking and then

Matthew Dols 14:51
I’m horrible at Instagram. I’ve tried to do it for so long, and I just can’t crack that algorithm. I don’t know

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 14:59
how I mean, the algorithm is tricky, but I don’t think that means that one shouldn’t use it as a platform. I mean, if you think of it as a, it’s like a display window, like any kind of shop or business, it doesn’t have to be. What’s really lovely about it as well is that it’s very often free of the kind of art speak. And the artist statement is very much about the work. And then maybe you get two lines, and then maybe you click into the artists website. I mean, I say to my students, unfortunately, or fortunately, because it’s two dimensional, you need to have these short windows for your work, or else you do risk that people don’t see it.

Matthew Dols 15:36
I’m aware that it’s a horrible necessary evil in the world these days. And I try my best, but it’s, I find it a little hard because like, I’ve had some guests who like do social media incredibly well. And they’ve given little tips and tricks. And it’s always basically like, don’t use it as a portfolio but like, express more about your life and your lifestyle and your vision and your behind the scenes and creation of and, and I’m just like, I don’t want everybody to know all that stuff about me. Like I’m, even though I run a podcast, and I share a lot of information about my life. There are certain things I like to keep private.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 16:15
Yeah, well, so I don’t I’m not remotely interested in what you do in your private life, or what you had for breakfast, or lunch, or whatever. I mean, I am interested in seeing the work.

Matthew Dols 16:24
And I love you for that. That’s great. Good. So we’re of the same ilk on that position. I like it. All right. I also noticed in your bio thing, it talked about queer curatorial approach. Is that something you’re still working with now?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 16:41
Yeah, I think it’s something I will always have. I mean, it was very explicit in occupancy on the move. And it was very loose, because I think how I defined it to the artists was if they could find some aspect of the neighborhood, so this very diverse neighborhood that’s within the close vicinity of the museum that had been in some way marginalized or overlooked or ignored. So it had not necessarily anything to do with the artists personal identity. So I worked with queer artists who in a sense, made queer work, but also with straight and sis artists who also made work that they’ve described in sort of queer way. And queer artists who didn’t make queer work and all permutations of those things. It was, of course, some the I think the more noticeable projects, perhaps were the ones that were very. Yeah, very queer. I mean, the ones that had huge visibility, we did Oslo Pride Parade Float with Thrall, Kim, and tweet, Eric, but of course, that’s going to be very visible as a contribution into a queer conversation or queer landscape, but are the more subtle projects as well?

Matthew Dols 17:53
Well, hold on one second, let’s back up a little bit. I’m going to be really stupid keep in mind the titles the wise for for the podcast, I’m gonna ask a stupid question. Give me a definition of queer specifically, I mean, that sort of in contrast to like LGBTQ, and like all these kinds of like, how does that fit? What’s your definition of what you’re calling queer curatorial work?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 18:17
Yeah, I think it’s important to emphasize that this is just how I work with it right. And because there are so many different ways in which people describe themselves and want to express themselves, but in the way that I work you’re truly queer is not limited to issues of sexual orientation. It refers rather to a sort of critique or rupture of an existing order, which isn’t only heteronormative but misogynist, white, anthropocentric, traditionally, its values conservative, and it’s approached artistic disciplines and disciplining, in many ways it tries to consider the other or like the alternative that has been gathered by the dominant social order. That’s how I defined quit. And I was like, I mean, I defined myself as queer. And maybe 10 years ago, I would have said I was a lesbian, but I prefer the sort of floating queer mantra.

Matthew Dols 19:11
Yeah, the the changing terminology I’m getting, you know, hopefully your difficulties are keeping up and making sure that I’m using the right words for the right definitions, basically, because I’m just not keeping up at all.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 19:25
And they change all the time. And I think some of those guides that are put out by certain organizations to an inclusive language very often they just just ask that if you don’t know it’s better to, because you’re talking about somebody who’s felt that their identity, their orientation, their fundamental sense of self has always been excluded, or marginalized in some way. So I think just a gesture of asking or just a gesture of being able to consider that there might be something beyond the sort of heteronormative binary, in and of itself is an open dress Which is very much considered,

Matthew Dols 20:02
it’s very funny because like, I sit around and like, I hear all these stories about all of this stuff that we’ve been discussing here. So queer, LGBTQ, non binary, all this good stuff. And, and I’m just in there, I’m like, why does anybody even have a problem with any of this? Like, I don’t understand, but some people have problems with all of this. And I was raised in a reasonably liberal household and the reasons liberal community. So I guess, like to me, I was just sort of like, Yeah, what I don’t understand. Like, it’s obvious. You know, the, the the tradition is white, male dominant. Art industry like, yeah, we all know that, though. To me, that was very clear that that’s what it was me history was written by the victors kind of thing kind of stuff. So like, yeah, so I always wondered, so like, like, for me, it’s like, I don’t do who has problems with these things, I guess is the sort of the point.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 20:58
Well, you’re sitting in Eastern Europe, for a number of countries around you that have huge problems in putting LGBTQ free zones. There’s a huge amount of violence directed against sexual minorities, which maybe you don’t see. And frankly, probably I don’t see that that much of there was I’m always reminded of, there was a work in the Istanbul biennial, the one that was curated by the Harvey, and there was a really powerful video, which was, and I might be getting the facts slightly wrong. But I think it was in Zagreb, I think it was the first diagram pride, which was filmed from from almost from start to finish. And they had a form of police protection. But there were also these right wing thugs, basically, who were attacking the people in the parade, and just the level of kind of hatred, that you can just feel emanate from these people, even through the via the medium of the screen, which is deeply disturbing. And I think and as a queer person, myself, I just I find it incredibly upsetting. And that’s we’re talking to 1000s. There. And this still happens to a lot of people. So whilst I completely agree with you and see, of course, it shouldn’t be a problem, because it shouldn’t be like this. It is Linus agreed. Yeah, it is, I

Matthew Dols 22:15
guess maybe I just live in a bubble that I stay away from those kinds of people. So I just don’t see it very much.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 22:23
Yeah. Then you have people who harbor those opinions. And you would never realize they suddenly come creeping out of the woodwork. And you think, Wow, do you really think that?

Matthew Dols 22:33
I mean, when I was raised, my, my uncle was gay. Back then it was called gay, just to be clear. So they said, this is the early 90s kind of time period. He was gay, and he passed away of a complications due to AIDS and all this kind of stuff. So like, this has been in our family for a while. So it’s not, to me, it’s just like, Yeah, okay. Totally normal. But I guess a lot of communities don’t have a lot of this. Anyways, anything else you want to finish about that?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 23:04
I didn’t wait to start to be honest. So I think that’s a nice to finish off on that. And I’m sorry for your loss of your uncle. Oh,

Matthew Dols 23:12
25 years ago, it’s fine. But it was my father’s twin brother. So that was a little difficult for him to lose his twin brother.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 23:22
I think it’s also I mean, I think I would want to add something which is the first project in mock was on the move was won by an artist Swedish artist called Sam hula team. And it was called am every lesbian Oslo. And it was a project that I had started before I got the job at museums because I got a bit of funding from the Arts Council. And what Hill team does is basically interview local lesbians with a star so anyone who’s sort of female defined, and have them retail, their stories connected to sort of seminal sites in the city, either important personally or important sort of, on a on a wider societal level. And then so for during Oslo pride, we were having the first of these urban walks, because that’s one of the performative elements is to pick out some of these stories and then go as a group and then retell the stories connected to that particular building, or that particular park or it is a really beautiful project that then kind of has tentacles out all over the city and uncovers these completely marginalized histories from the urban fabric. And when we were going to doing this walk, it was day after the Orlando massacre at the Pulse nightclub and, and I think that that was it. I mean, I held the speech in my voice cracked because it just felt so important about that particular point to, to gather together as a community and obviously a very diverse community to come together and to to celebrate the history of these people who had gone before us. But also just spend time together and take up space in the city, because there are so many people who then want to A race, that kind of visibility. And not just visibility, but also like physical bodies. So unfortunately, I don’t think there’s something that is just belongs to the past. It’s I think it’s very much current.

Matthew Dols 25:13
I find that to be a very sad state of affairs in the 21st century, you think we can get past silly things like this. But Sorry, I didn’t mean silly things like this. That’s that was sort of inappropriate, fundamental things like this. That’s just me. Let’s shift topics away from that to something else. By the way, I’m going to be doing a panel discussion about lots of different topics, but the first one’s going to be LGBTQ in the arts is my first panel topic. Oh, well, yeah, I’m a little scared about it. My second one is sexism in the arts

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 25:52
that you’re running or participating in.

Matthew Dols 25:55
I will be the host, the moderator. I know, I’m like, I suddenly I’m like, Oh, my God, I’m probably the most unqualified moderator for this ever, just by like talking with you. But anyways,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 26:08
I mean, I think as long as you acknowledge it, that can be something really helpful in having a pardon. The insinuation and completely ignorant moderator enables people to put things in terms which may be a little bit wildly more widely understandable, might give you a wider reach.

Matthew Dols 26:23
And that is the whole concept behind this podcast. So yeah, I mean, basically, like the idea of the podcast is like, I have some knowledge, I have my very specific knowledge. And I’m very qualified at that very masterful at that, and there is so much stuff that I have no idea about, and I’m an absolute idiot about. I think I just found one of those topics. Okay, so should be interesting. All right. Take it back a step. So the monk Museum, so the monk Museum, how did it sort of come together so that it’s, I don’t know the history of the museum. So it’s funded by the Norwegian government, like and so like, how does it all function?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 27:07
It’s funded by the city of Oslo. So it’s the City Museum, rather than a national museum. It opened certified monk dedicated his work in 1944, just before he died, the museum was built and opened in 1963, on the east side of Oslo, and tehan, which then, until fairly recently, was a relatively sort of socially disadvantaged area. It’s an area full of real kind of contradictions. It had you know, Norway’s at that point, only three star Michelin restaurant, it had the Natural History Museum, but it also had some of the highest demographic rates of unemployment, closed, living quarters, social problems, it doesn’t have that as much anymore, but it’s just incredibly kind of complex and diverse. It had so many different religious buildings, from a kind of Buddhist temple, Catholic Church, several mosques, various other churches, one that was very lgbtqi friendly, in fact, and where the Oslo Pride Parade starts, but it was just full is super interesting area of old Oslo, which isn’t just tie in its tail and get an alarm gambler being placed names that might not make any sense to your listeners, but just wanted to mention them anyway.

Matthew Dols 28:26
And now that you’re getting ready, so you came out of school in 2008, in the financial crisis, and now you’re getting ready to open up a brand, a museum in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah, anything there?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 28:42
Um, what was the words that they say that you roll with the punches? I mean, it’s a hugely privileged position to be in, in 2008, it was hugely privilege to graduate from the Royal College and to then get a job at the Whitechapel Gallery. We’re hugely privileged to be able to move and get these fantastic facilities for both for the collection and for all the other art projects that will be done. I guess the only way is up from this particular moment, where you can’t show anything it does actually consume. I mean, I never realized perhaps how, how dependent one is on audiences. Because you, you get very stuck in how you work with artists, and you work on kind of delivering the best possible work for a particular setting. And of course, you very much care what people think of it and how many people show up. But when they can’t show up, a huge part of what I do just feels meaningless, because they don’t even make anything. I mean, as a curator, your work is in a form of support structure for other people’s making, and crucially display. And if you can’t display it for anyone, then you know, it’s hard not to think Well, what’s the point of me?

Matthew Dols 29:57
I disagree with that or let me I understand your perspective, that’s for sure. Well, okay, so when it comes to the, let’s say, for the museum, you close to the public, you don’t have visitors coming and seeing the works. You probably did something online at that point. How does that work with like tracking matrix is because like, you know, like museums, like they track how many people come in how long they stay, I don’t even know how many matrix you do. Like it could be even, you know, gender breakdowns, whatever, you know, different sober quantifiable sort of outcomes of the exhibition. Do you do that also, with online like, and how does that change? Like, because like, there’s one thing to how many people how long they stay in a physical gallery, and there’s a difference between how their attention span online and how long they’ll stay online?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 30:52
Yeah, I mean, it’s we have had this kads program, which is open is the second edition opens today, in fact, on April, the 15th, contemporary art digital shorts, where we show, film, video work, but of course, people are getting a bit of online fatigue. Now, after a year of pandemic, so it, we’re trying to keep them quite short, quite brief. And there are pros and cons. I mean, some of the pros is that you can reach people who are sitting in Peru, and who wouldn’t otherwise be able to come to the museum. A con would be that people don’t remotely spend as much time on an online work as they would do. If they came, they planned a museum visit they walked in the door, they’ve decided to spend a certain amount of time there, they have pitstops, in terms of cafes, or lunch, or whatever they need. And they would I don’t know how long we’ve factored in that people might stay. But it’s it is a destination, as opposed to just an offer that basically comes in across your crowded desktop. Another thing that somebody one of my colleagues pointed out was, it was really nice to see video works, where you can start them yourself, and stop them and go back to them in a way that I mean very often, if you’re, if you’re particularly if it’s a big exhibition, and I’m thinking again, I’m assuming the stats that came out of several documentaries, how many 1000s of hours of video footage if you’re going to watch every work. So video, film or video work does often get quite an ordeal within a sort of traditional display platforms. Because people stick their head in, they realize that in the middle of a film, they maybe watch it for a minute or two, and then they walk on or so the fact that you can sit somewhere and press play, press pause, go back to it, maybe you only watch one video a day, it’s an completely different way of viewing Moving Image work, which you think is quite interesting. And something that we we need to take into account when the museum does open maybe if there’s some way of being able to offer that kind of experience. So that kind of access, even though you’re not going to have the the right projector or the most fantastic speakers that you have in a gallery setting. You know, you are watching it on your screen with relatively crappy headphones. Still, you’re getting something from it. So yeah, long winded answer. But there are benefits. And really interesting aspects that this, this scenario has thrown up.

Matthew Dols 33:23
Why I find it interesting because like when I’m thinking about what you’re talking about right there. So like video work, there’s something like I’ve watched videos, obviously in museums and galleries and things like this. And there’s something about the experience of having walked in probably gone through a curtain, you know, the very, sort of want to call it sterile environment, but sort of the iconic white Kuby kind of environment, the reverence that I have for that kind of experience that when I watch something, the same video, let’s say, on my desktop at home, I don’t have the focused attention quite as much as I do when it’s placed in this you know, place of reverence you know, so a museum, a gallery, etc. So, I find watching art video at work at home, not as I’m not as focused on it, I guess, would be the easiest way because I’m distracted like while I’m what looking some email might pop up or whatever else might sort of distract me. So I find it personally a bit difficult to engage at such a high level, and as such intimacy as I do when I see things at a place and a time that I’ve set aside to be in that experience.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 34:39
Yeah, maybe a combination could work. I mean, there’s also the idea of other people, right, the experiencing something with other people. I think one of those strongest works so when we could still go to exhibitions was Arthur Jeffers Love is the message the message is death and seeing that on a huge screen with massive speaker systems. So just having that experience and also having experience with other people in that space was really stunning. And it’s not going to be the same when you look at it on your laptop when you get home. But there are aspects of that work that you then notice that you maybe didn’t notice upon first viewing or second or third viewing even, you can go into the details and very many moving image works conceived so incredibly thoughtfully, that you almost over to the artist to trying to try and get all of the details, all of the little nuts and bolts of the work and kind of to have that entire experience. And I think if you could have some way of getting both that might be ideal

Matthew Dols 35:38
is like when you go somewhere and you have an experience and you love it so much that like you. You want to bring it home and when you experience it at home it then you’re reminded of that great time.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 35:49
Yeah,

Matthew Dols 35:51
but it’s really hard right now, because you only have that at home time. So we don’t have that. That initial, like beautiful, like magical moment of seeing it the first time to then rewatch it. It’s difficult. I mean, I’m I’m I’m sympathizing or empathizing with you on the difficulties of this.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 36:09
Yeah, cuz I mean, can go both ways. Oh, now I can’t get the image out of my head of, you know, when if you go on holiday somewhere, and you taste some kind of local spirit, and you think, oh, that’s lovely. And you bring it horrid when you try it?

Matthew Dols 36:22
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Correct?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 36:26
Yes. not comparing artworks to bad local spirits. But you get my idea.

Matthew Dols 36:33
I do. That’s exactly my point is like, there’s a certain amount of like beauty in the experience and sort of a move a feeling that you get from doing that thing that I personally at this moment, and maybe times will change, but at this moment, don’t attain by watching art on a screen in my home office.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 36:56
Yeah, but things might change.

Matthew Dols 36:58
Yeah, I don’t know. Things only get better. I’m looking forward to like, virtual reality stuff that I can then sort of experience the virtual reality at home kind of stuff, like, but I don’t own any of that equipment. So I can’t do that yet. So

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 37:11
that’s in the very near future. I mean, we do, we’re working on a big group show around kind of intersections of human life and technology. And so I have had a few sort of VR experiences at home. And what’s surprising, but it’s exhausting. If you’re not used to gaming. It’s incredibly it’s like information overload. And I feel like those people who first saw the Lumiere brothers film and completely sort of overwhelmed by by the technology. Oh, yeah.

Matthew Dols 37:42
I mean, it’s, it’s a sensory overload for sure, the first few times you use that kind of device. But it could we could do augmented reality, then.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 37:51
Yeah. Which was, I mean, there are opportunities now a huge also for how I might view art, I mean, I think the whole way it changes how you interact with art and how you respond to art. I mean, we’re so used to this idea of either encountering sort of works of public art, surprisingly, and often annoyingly. And then other times where you go into a specific kind of building the conditions are exactly how you expect them to be. And to make that sort of shift into either using a handheld device to experience something will use your computer, I think we’re just so early in that game in a sort of widespread sense that it will be interesting to note what happens in the next sort of five years. And if we have some way of recording how we feel about it. Now, I think we’d look back on it and sort of roll our eyes.

Matthew Dols 38:39
Speaking of that, the thing that’s on everybody’s conversation these days are NF T’s, what do you think about those,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 38:46
I was dreading, if you’re gonna ask me about them.

Matthew Dols 38:49
We could skip it, we can move on, like, I will. Okay? The reason why I ask is because in my career, I’ve made a lot of these like little digital files throughout my my career that I’ve always just like, made they I sort of call them like the like sketches and ideas and stuff, and I never really did anything with them. And then suddenly, NF T’s become this thing. And I’m like, I can, I can finally have an outlet for this, like, terabytes of work that I’ve made that I’ve never exhibited, and I’ve never shown to the world. And then I went and did some research. And like, as a producer, I have to pay anywhere from like seven to 75 US dollars to simply create the NFT with no guarantee of return on that monies. So like I because I’m sitting there, like I’ve got 10s of 1000s of images that I can put out there but I don’t have $72,000 to throw down to create these NF T’s. And I found that whole system, like I personally am a little bit of a maybe a conspiracy theorist like I kind of believe that like the whole NF t thing is a little bit of like money laundering. going on, more so than necessarily like high art kind of thing. So like, I’m a little trepidatious about it at this point.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 40:08
I mean, it seems to reproduce some a lot of those kinds of forms of exclusion that you find in any other kind of artwork, if you have the high production value of something, then you’re unable to step into place it in a different kind of market, which then gives you a very high return and the high prices, and then you’re into sort of market logic, which I think has very little to do with what I think is important about art.

Matthew Dols 40:32
It’s tough. I mean, I feel like it’s based around the idea of stocks, basically, it’s just, it’s just a money shifting around and the images that are created are the little NF T’s are just representations of money being moved, but I feel like it’s more like a money moving thing than an art thing.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 40:53
And that’s true of a lot of artworks as well, let me traditional sculptures and paintings and also money moving devices. Unfortunately,

Matthew Dols 41:00
I’ve heard stories about that. But I have no proof of that.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 41:04
Well, I’m in so many different series, even at the moment on Netflix, and HBO and probably every other platform that talk about this, and they’re hugely inflated prices for artworks have got nothing to do with art. To be honest,

Matthew Dols 41:17
it’s hard. I mean, because like, I’m a practicing artist, and I always look at these things. And unfortunately, we only hear like through the news and social media about the things that are selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. But I wish there was more conversation about the people that are, for lack of a better word, like making a living, you know, like artists who are able to support themselves. Like that’s the really great story. But unfortunately, we’ve romanticized these multimillion dollar things. And they’re unrealistic in the average life of an artist.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 41:52
Oh, completely. But I don’t think it’s I mean, it’s sort of mainstream media that picks on that as the main story because that’s the easiest story to write. And it’s the one with the functions is clickbait. And then you went through an entire different rumor roll of, of how finances work, but I think some of the more other arts publications write about art in a different way. Of course, they have their own sort of structural forms of exclusion there,

Matthew Dols 42:20
and their own advertisers and sponsors that they have to answer to as always, money is the thing that makes it all go round, which is both sad and true. At the same time,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 42:31
we’ll make that thing go round. I mean, there is there are the entire other sort of circuits, which have to do with form of local engagement, a very personal level engagement. That kind of system is completely remote from what you’re describing now. And I think that’s where the sort of the realness for one to a better word about resides.

Matthew Dols 42:53
Okay. Well, I have a question for you. I had a guest a year ago from Finland, and she talked about how she was supported by the government and all that our how our artists supported, or are they supported by the government in Norway,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 43:07
I think it’s relatively similar to Finland. So from a lot of hard lobbying work by artists in the 1970s, the artists action, there are a number of grants and support structures available for artists which managed by the Arts Council. compared to many other countries, it’s incredibly generous. But I think if you break it down into what it actually is, for a jobbing artists, then the sums are relatively low. So it’s not like you’re living the high luxury life on these kinds of grants. But I think they’re incredibly important because they just buy some time. And you can have a think of 50% job alongside it. So enables people to either work as kind of teachers or do any other other form to support themselves, but it buys you that at least that 50% of time in the studio,

Matthew Dols 44:03
I would love it, if I could find grants that would support me 50%, I’ll take 50% I’m an American, we don’t even get 5% there. So like 50%, astounding of work.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 44:16
That is 50% of like an average, relatively low salary. And just just to be clear, and they are being I’ll still

Matthew Dols 44:23
take it, I’ll take it.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 44:25
But then we have not to whine on about the pandemic. But currently, I mean, I think artists and also art institutions are the ones that have suffered the most from the pandemic. So all of these are the support structures that have been put in place to help aspects of businesses, large businesses are taking, obviously the largest part of the pie artists, not an artists usually not really being considered in in that particular Fallout. So I’m quite worried to see how people come out with this.

Matthew Dols 44:53
But I’ve had this discussion before, which is like, right now during the COVID. There’s been this sort of outcry of like, Oh my gosh, you got to support the creative people that the gig economy people, the artists, the whatever the people that have not had their their business. And while that’s great this outpouring of assistance, the issue is really the long term effects. Because the government or these corporations that had been the supporters of the arts through the past, after COVID, some of those businesses and some of those governments are just simply not going to have the funds to continue to support the arts and artists after this is done. And that’s the big concern that they had. And I thought, yeah, that’s pretty true.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 45:38
Yeah, more true in the States than it is in Norway, I think. But here as well, because I mean, the sponsorship of the US much more developed in the States than it is in Norway, also, because you don’t have the same kind of government structures and support structures that we have here. But always moving in that direction of being able to, to be able to make a profit, basically. So yeah, if you don’t have those, those private funds coming in, and you’re not being recognized or taken care of in the government funds that are being awarded, then what happens?

Matthew Dols 46:12
And that is a concern for the sort of post pandemic time with the arts. Yes. Back to the monk museum. You have this collection? Do you have to you have to store this? Yes. Or is it all on display at all times?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 46:27
No, there’s some, some display some stored.

Matthew Dols 46:31
I’m always fascinated by storage, itself, like so like, do you have like custom made crates for each piece? And then you have like, pay for some off site security, climate controlled storage? And like all this kind of stuff? Like how’s that all done?

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 46:47
Well, I don’t know about the details, so much of this. But yes, there is some storage on site. And then there is some storage off site. And of course, the climate control. I think our museum have one of the strictest climate control conditions of many. And there’s a huge amount of research going on in the Conservation Department about the effects that various kind of climactic features have on artworks. I mean, Edwin monk was he was terrible with his work, it just left it outside for for the bird droppings and wind and weather. And well, I mean, he that’s kind of maybe particular, but I also find a lot of contemporary artists are very careless with the work. So that’s but of course, when you have this, this gift, your primary responsibility is to look after it in the right way. But also then to see whether there are certain Do you preserve the bird droppings has been actually a sort of topic of research and investigation? And how do you work with restoring those particular works? There’s another project which is reasonably been started is how do you how do you work with conservation of contemporary art? So particularly the things that are intangible? How do you conserve preserve a performance? How do you social practice? How does that get conserved, preserved, looked after? I mean, it is actually really fascinating area where you can really go into the minute details of preservation and conservation.

Matthew Dols 48:10
Oh, I’ve been obsessed about it for decades, because I’m traditionally a photographer was my medium that I started with. And when I was starting in like early 90s, they were obsessed with archival processes. And every single professor in every single gallery was always like, are you doing this with archival materials, etc. The pH balanced madding like the whole thing like so I’ve become rather obsessed about it to the point that it’s probably to my detriment, because now I’m such a snob about quality materials, that I sort of can’t just be creative with whatever I have, because I need the right materials just in case it ends up being an amazing piece that It better be done with a good archival materials, because like, it would really suck to end up making amazing piece with non archival works. And it’s just like, yes, it’s a problem.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 49:06
JOHN, you can do photography, then.

Matthew Dols 49:10
I keep it in clamshell boxes with glycine between each print so they don’t stick. And I keep them in a climate controlled space. But that’s worth for my traditional silver gelatin works or any sort of non traditional mediums of my cyanotypes and gum bichromate and all these other things. But then of course there’s digital so like digital is a whole different thing into the digital print is prints. It’s kind of one of the things like how precious is a digital print since I could just reprint it if it gets damaged. So it’s a little I keep a number of prints and I keep them again and climate controlled and glycine between them and all that and in clamshell boxes, you know, archival pH balance of that, but I don’t feel quite as precious about those because quite honestly, I could just easily reprint those. But, you know, darkroom analog silver gelatin prints, I would be really hard and really expensive to reprint those. So I’m a little bit more precious about those. But you

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 50:15
do have the negatives as well.

Matthew Dols 50:17
Oh, of course, oh my god, I did treat my negatives like gold. Like they’re also kept in climate controlled boxes, archival sleeves, the whole thing. So the I mean, I’m of that era that like treats everything super well. But I also came from a family, my parents have a little art collection, and my dad makes art as well. So like, we sort of have a reverence for art that that is probably unique. I’m sure it’s normal to me, but I think it’s unique among the world.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 50:50
Well, great. for future generations are going to be very grateful for that.

Matthew Dols 50:55
It’s funny, I’ve been thinking a lot because I had a guest again, on the podcast, Amy potsticker, a legacy planner about like how artists as living artists should be putting effort into creating their own legacy. And like keeping paperwork and keeping negatives and keeping documents and everything around their career, because part of the way that an artist continues to be known after their death is through the ability to have scholarly research done on things about them. So not only do you have to keep your artwork, but keeping all the stuff around your artwork, so your journals, your receipts, your these kinds of things makes it so that in the future people can do research on you.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 51:39
Yeah, I mean, I’m looking into this at the moment, how do you archive curatorial practice in a good way, which is as a project for the Norwegian association of curators where we started this conversation, but also, how do you archive an exhibition from a curatorial perspective? Because obviously, the artworks are documented. Hopefully everyone’s been as thoughtful as you about how they’ve archived their own process. But how do you? And what do you archive from a curatorial process? Yeah, someone like how’s a man who’s got like, I’ve been looking at his files in the Getty Research Center in LA, and it’s just boxes upon boxes upon boxes of stuff describing exactly what I mean receipts, he often wrote some of his ideas down on napkins, which are then been perfectly preserved. But there’s also I mean, I find, and this is what I’m quite bad at the sort of, from curators point of view that the pomposity of doing that at the age of like, 21. This is going to be important for the future. It’s just something that I can’t begin to, to estimate. And I’ve done I mean, I’ve done my archival research, I did my PhD on exhibitions, I should be one of the people who most excited and most diligent about archiving, I’m really not.

Matthew Dols 52:55
Yeah, I mean, we all should be better at it. But But the problem then becomes the fact that like, Okay, so let’s say at 21, you start collecting all this stuff, that means you have to keep it with you, and you have to transport it, every time you move, you have to pay to store it, you have to keep it organized, you have to keep it climate control, whatever for like 60 years, until you die, you know, and then your children theoretically would have to do the same to it’s just like, Oh, come on. Like there is a point where we shouldn’t be having to lug around or pay for shorts. I had storage units for years of stuff that I finally was just like, I’m done with the storage units.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 53:34
Yeah. And then suddenly you find something that you really need it from that archive, and it’s very annoying. Well, you just forget, I mean, amnesia is a happy

Matthew Dols 53:42
thing. Sometimes I thoroughly enjoyed going it was just this past September, I had to go through my storage unit. And I so enjoyed it, because I was like, I don’t even remember producing this, like this is amazing. Like, how did I When did I make this? Why did I not make more of this? Like, it’s a wealth of like random things that I was just re inspired by basically re reinventing an idea that I came up with 30 years ago.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 54:09
So that was lovely. Yeah, I think that’s really interesting, because a lot of artists work that way. And you do need the archive or some semblance of an archive in order to see because ideas don’t you know, they don’t burst in a particular era, or in particularly year, a particular day and then disappear. I mean, they’re all connected to each other. So if you have some easy way of accessing it, I mean, some artists make a book for particular exhibitions, a particular period of time, and then you can go back and you seeing so much of their early work, get different kind of manifestations later on.

Matthew Dols 54:42
Oh, yeah, it’s, I call it sort of like the common thread that runs through an artist’s career. So like, they’re, like little things, little techniques or ideas that are approached or addressed early in their career that they revisit or expand on as their career expands. Yeah. All right. Last two questions. First one. Do you have three artists that you are you find of note right now that you’re sort of following or looking at? Oh, wow. contemporary artists. Sorry, I should be clear on that.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 55:15
These ones, that’s a tricky one, because I’m always gonna have those. Well, the Germans I think called stare whispers, you know, when you’ve answered the questions, I should have thought of that person. I mean, there are as you get 200 references to writers,

Matthew Dols 55:28
you’re welcome to send me some links. I’ll put them in the show notes later, that’s fine.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 55:33
But I think I mean, I am These are people who I’m going to I’m working with, they’re going to have shows at Mach. So they’re very much at the forefront of my mind. Camille and Nicole, French artist is based in New York, she won the inaugural Edward monk art awards in 2015. And with that comes a solo exhibition, which is finally happening in 2022. She’s an incredible artist. I mean, I followed her work way before she she was given this particular prize, and she’s just opening a new exhibition and one offer. And they’re making a new book about her work. And she, She’s incredible. She’s, you know, some artists who managed to combine the kind of really smart thinking with really incredible, visceral works. You don’t have to, to read extensively in order to just get it on a visceral level. But at the same time, you can also if you go down the rabbit hole and join her in her thinking is an incredible experience. So I feel really privileged to be working with her. Then there’s a Norwegian artist called Sandra muchinga, who is having many exhibitions this coming year, and particularly one that’s coming up in the Swiss Institute in New York. She’s also included in the new museum triennial. And she’s someone whose work I’ve also been following for a number of years, and also taught to my students, because there’s a sort of level of reflection and conviction almost in her work, which is just incredibly impressive. And again, a little bit like coming in at or the last show that I saw of hers was at Bergen, constar. in Bergen, and the students went as well, which is huge hologram work, inspired some of her mother has deceased mother, but then also managing to kind of capture so much of ideas of afrofuturism of black bodies, in particular historical moment, I mean, just just incredible work. And as a very, very cool as well, very, very distinct kind of visual way of expressing herself. And the final one, this is the terrible thing of having of only having three, if you’d like, you can

Matthew Dols 57:59
do four, it’s fine. I just randomly choose three because I like the number three.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 58:05
Yeah, I think a lot of people have, it’s the sort of the rule of three, with a lot of things. I had three case studies for my PhD is very common. It’s something that happens within the kind of juxtaposition of three things.

Matthew Dols 58:16
My mother is an interior decorator, so she always decorated in threes. So

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 58:20
that’s something really, really beautiful about that number.

Matthew Dols 58:23
And my father is a priest. So you know, the the Holy Trinity is sort of ingrained into me.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 58:29
He’s a priest and an artist. Yeah. Great combination.

Matthew Dols 58:35
He actually paints 13th and 14th century Russian Byzantine icons.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 58:40
Oh, wow. Okay, I’ve got the third one. Which is almost painful, because that means excluding everyone else. So I’m currently thinking about, but American artists who’s Stavanger born. So he lives in Sterling in Korea, archangal. He’s currently got a show on green Naftali and he very kindly gave us a tour of that exhibition sort of online tour. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, creates these absurd hacks, in many ways, utterly meaningless, works in a way that managed to convey the hollowness of certain sort of indices of success that we have, currently. So I don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to check out his show. It’s on for another couple of days. I don’t think we have time to go into the details of it. But there is a piece there that he’s worked on for four years, which plays with a video game, which is Kim Kardashian video game where you gather kind of celebrity points, and it’s a machine that is learning how to play that game, and you’re watching the machine, learn how to play it, and it plays it really badly. And it just becomes such a wonderful image of the meaningless of that particular game, the pointlessness of fame, but also the hands Other sort of the machine trying to learn this stuff with all of the mega kind of intelligence that the machine has, and still is pretty appalling at it. That is such a, it’s a really wonderful work, which I hope people will get opportunities to see. And he’s just just done a contemporary art digital short for, for MOOC. So which is then available on the museum website, which is a new commission, where he creates a bot that likes social media posts from various different companies. This one is particularly from Zara, and just that kind of seeing every post that comes up, and then this little machine making the heart just, I mean, it’s such a clever comment on the hollowness of the digital heart when you can make and when you can pay these sort of click farms to do them. And when you think about so many young people being so obsessed about the amount of of likes that they get, and the amount of hearts that they get, and you know, you can just buy them and it just that whole sort of gesture. Yeah, it just sort of lampoon’s it. When you find artists, I can see you giggling

Matthew Dols 1:01:05
I am giggling because like I’m sitting here, I’m like, it’s not just kids that are obsessed. Other people argue back and forth. Some some months, I’m substantially more obsessed about social media than others for sure. But yeah, Sad but true state of affairs. Alright. Last question is advice for the next generation, particularly in your case of like curatorial practices, artists, things along that line,

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 1:01:32
stay strong. That’s a quote that my father made a piece of work, which is the final sentences on inmates on death row immediately, before they executed that the final sentence one of them and it’s been printed is stay strong. Not to talk too much about that work. But I’m always fascinated by like, when you’re about you know that you’re about to leave this earth. What do you say? Is it the Oscar Wilde? Either I go or that wallpaper goes, it would love to be so clever to think of something like that. I mean, what do you say, particularly if it’s sort of involuntary, but that phrase, stay strong, I think is definitely necessary in these period of time. But that’s much more about the sort of the inner, more specific advice, look at stuff. Just try not to disappear into your studio in your own world, when you’re, when you can go and see as much as possible. I have great faith in the sort of community of art, which is created around either discursive events or around having seen the same thing in the same space. That I think is what will sustain you. Also, through those tough times where you know, the studio works not going particularly well, you’re feeling like you’re just sort of, in some sort of sludge, to have that kind of community. It was a direct community of friends and other artists, or whether it’s a sense of community, with other artists. I mean, I found it really just talking about these three artists, when you asked me about it, it just felt myself getting incredibly uplifted, because there are some really brilliant people out there who are making incredibly incisive, and in many ways, some beautiful things that say something about our current kind of human condition and predicament and offer a new sort of direct pathway to the future, but just offer at least some kind of interesting detail that makes you appreciate life much more in all its sort of richness and absurdities. So people should see it.

Matthew Dols 1:03:31
Fabulous. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.

Tominga Hope O’Donnell 1:03:35
It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much.

Matthew Dols 1:03:40
I appreciate that you listen to the complete episode of this particular guest. Now what I would ask is, could you please go and give us a star rating or a comment, it could be critical, it could be supportive and positive. Doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you do the ratings because as much you all as you will know that I have a great disdain for the algorithm. That is one hack that I have figured out will help our podcast and any podcast that you love. So please give a rating and or a comment. And that will be more very supportive and helpful for the podcast. It will make it so that we can get more listeners we get more listeners, we get better guests, we get better guests you get more and better knowledge from listening to the podcast. So in the end, this little time that you put into this will potentially benefit you directly in your career. So thank you and I hope that I’m helpful to you or career.

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com