THE ARCHIVE My thoughts, your actions is a site-specific work located in the Monolittsalen in the Vigeland Museum, Oslo. On the long side of the gallery, 19 shelves are placed across. The shelves, approximately two meters high and 80 cm wide, are placed over the 19 beams that form the gallery’s structure, thus creating a sculptural image connected to the existing architecture. The work was shown at the Sculpture Biennale Autumn 2013.

An archive must preserve and provide access to material that is considered valuable. It is often associated with something a little dark, dusty, and lasting. Schröder’s archive, on the other hand, is bright, open, and ephemeral. It contains the thoughts of youth aged 14 to 16. Ahead of the exhibition, pupils from Uranienborg School in Oslo were invited to the Vigeland Museum, where they were introduced to Gustav Vigeland’s art.This meeting has been intended as a starting point for personal reflections on the young people’s concerns. The pupils were then asked to write down some of their thoughts in a thin layer of icing sugar on the shelves in the archive. The archive thus functions as an open meeting place for thoughts. It can be entirely useless, weird, banal, or controversial thoughts. Personal, political, or innovative thoughts. The work thus constitutes an archive of thoughts that reflects the incredible world around us or within us.

Text: (by Guri Skuggen, conservator The Vigeland Museum)