This painting series is a pop-up exhibition based on my bachelor’s project Ocean Dream. You can read more about the project further down the page under “Ocean Dream.”

By registering their ships in economically marginalized countries, the cruise industry has made utopian holidays more affordable. Workers from low-income nations are often willing to endure long hours aboard luxury ships – when the alternative is earning a tenth of the wage back home. While passengers enjoy ocean views and elegant suites, cruise ship workers share windowless cabins deep in the vessel, where some suffer lasting injuries from the constant noise and vibrations of the engine room. Twelve-hour shifts are the norm, and many crew members work entire seasons without a single day off.

Working in service is not only physically demanding—it can be emotionally exhausting. As someone with a background in the service industry, I still recall the suffocating feeling of being «invisible» in front of customers.

I invite visitors in via a red carpet. On the walls hang porthole-like paintings, each revealing different ocean depths. The deeper you go into Ocean Dream, the deeper beneath the surface the paintings appear. Personally, I find it difficult to understand the desire for luxury – especially when it comes at the expense of others. Reality begins to slip into the surreal. In surrealist painting, dream and reality, consciousness and the subconscious, merge into one. With Ocean Dream, I use surrealism to visualize my own perception of the cruise industry.

“Moose in sunset”, labeled “true Scandinavian kitsch” is known for symbolizing nationality and culture. As fewer and fewer moose are spotted in the forests, there is reason to believe that the moose are in the process of becoming extinct.  I wonder if the reading of ‘moose in sunset’ is going to change, if it will be reshaped into symbolizing historical and ecological changes, and become a memory of something that is part of the past, a culture that was before.

The service industry has been a theme I have been coming back to several times in my art and writings.

Since I used to work in different areas of the service industry (bartender, waitress, kitchen assistant, barista) for more than ten years, I am fascinated by this business, especially the dark sides of it. I am interested in challenging customer/worker relations, work hierarchies, sexual harassment, exploitation of workers, relationships and conflicts. Decaf and Cocktail are inspired my Mikkel McAlinden’s photo series End game 1-4 (1999).