SEVEN TIMES THE COLOR OF THE SUN: ENERGY, MYTH, AND HUMANITY IN NORTHERN NORWAY

North Norwegian Art Centre presents Seven Times the Color of the Sun, the second chapter of Solar Kin, a long-term curatorial project examining artistic responses to the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies, particularly solar power. The exhibition was curated by Adriana Alves and Vanina Saracino, and features works by artists Hilde Hauan Johnsen, Saodat Ismailova, Olof Marsja, Ina Otzko, Angelo Plessas, and Alf Magne Salo.

The exhibition draws inspiration from a Mayan creation myth, in which humans were ultimately shaped from sunlight, emerging as beings “seven times the color of the sun.” Radiant and powerful, these figures symbolize both human potential and the blindness that can accompany it—a lens through which the exhibition considers humanity’s responsibilities today.

Following the first chapter, I converse with fire, which traced a path from sacred ancestral flames to the burning of fossil fuels, this chapter broadens its scope to energy as a vital, relational force. Artists engage solar radiation as material, symbolic, and spiritual energy, connecting Indigenous knowledge, Norwegian folklore, Zoroastrian cosmologies, and Greek mythology to contemporary reflections on life in a technologically mediated era.

Featured works include the public debut of Sámi artist Alf Magne Salo’s series De fire årstider (The Four Seasons, 1987) and Angelo Plessas’ new quilts Sole Solaris (2025) and Rainbow Unit Ceremony (2025), conceived as the exhibition’s opening act. Through these projects, Seven Times the Color of the Sun opens a space for imagining interdependent, non-extractive ways of inhabiting the world.

Seven Times the Color of the Sun will be on display from October 5 until January 4, 2026, at North Norwegian Art Centre, Torget 20, 8300 Svolvær (Norway).

*Cover image:Alf Magne Salo, Høst Čakča (Autumn), 1987. Oil on wood, 120 × 170 cm. Courtesy of the Center for Northern Peoples.