About the project

The exhibition Beaver Hotel by Beatrice Alvestad Lopez focuses on woodcraft, fallen logs and carving, as an exploration of the beavers living conditions and character. The beaver serves as an allegorical symbol of the artist’s passion for carving through wood, exploring its organic pathways and hidden pockets. The sculptures represent a striving to understand the beaver’s position in the landscape through craft techniques and concepts rooted in Nordic ecologies, while also keeping in mind the local historic traditions of carving with a playful and organic approach to handling materials.

“The wood used in this exhibition was sourced from piles, and as I carried each piece to my studio, I reflected on their strength and life purpose, which inevitably involve both wood and water. This connection is why the exhibition poster unites these two elements—water and wood carvings. The ever-flowing water, especially in today’s climate crisis marked by increasing floods, positions the beaver as a potential key player in alleviating the pressure on waterways. Thus, this exhibition serves as a hymn to the beaver as a creature, expressed through my own human creativity.”

One of the wooden sculptures includes a moving image film featuring clips of the local landscape, combined with music composed by the duo Helga Myhr (hardingfele) and Tanja Orning (cello). The experimental sounds emanating from strings of animal hair on wooden instruments resonate with the mystery of nature—the mountains, the rain, the myriad of life, and what lies hidden from human eyes.

The exhibition is open 28. September to 26. October, Sat-Sund 11.00 – 16.00

About the artist

The larger themes of Beatrice Alvestad Lopez’ practice revolve around site, narrative, and materiality. She works in multiple mediums—sculpture, performance, and installation—utilizing sustainable and local materials combined with wood, clay, and textiles. Her emphasis is on context-based projects and research. Her installations integrate material-based works, new media (film, sound, photography), and performance and explore themes of fiction, narrative, and folklore in interaction with materiality. In many works, fiction unfolds through narratives linked to materiality and the landscape. While materiality is the focus of the creation process, digital elements such as performance film and sound are also incorporated. She has recently exhibited her multimedia installation project “Metaplasm” at Bomuldsfabriken’s themed exhibition in 2024, curated by Kari Skippervold (Bomuldsfabriken) and Johanna Zanon (Norske Kunsthåndverkere). I presented a collaborative video performance, “Janus Leviathan,” with Anastasia Savinova at Röhsska Museet in the spring of 2024. She has exhibited in numerous venues, including Konsthallen i Luleå, Västerbotten Museum, House of Foundation, BO, Wergelandshaugen, and Collecteurs.

https://www.beatricealvestadlopez.com/