The Sparebankstiftelsen DNB Grant for 2024 is awarded to Eline Benjaminsen for the installation The Flora of Finance.

Oslo Kunstforening congratulates Eline Benjaminsen,  recipient of the 200.000 NOK grant and a three-month residency at Ekely through Stiftelsen Edvard Munchs Atelier. Benjaminsen is one of three nominated artists in the Sparebankstiftelsen DNB Grant Exhibition 2024, currently on view at Oslo Kunstforening. The exhibition opened on 14 November and will run until 26 January. The other artists nominated are Margrethe Kolstad Brekke and Nikhil Vettukattil.

Eline Benjaminsen (b. 1992, Oslo) is a multidisciplinary artist working across a variety of media, including photography, video, publications, and printmaking. She explores the intersections of finance and nature, uncovering the often invisible and hidden spaces where financial transactions take place. By tracing follow-the-money narratives, Benjaminsen fuses techniques of traditional documentary photography with experimental processes.

In her installation The Flora of Finance, Benjaminsen examine how financial practices restrict access to land and natural resources. The two films in the exhibition illustrate the costs and consequences for landscapes and the livelihoods of those affected. Together with collaborator Dayna Casey, Benjaminsen has coined the genre cli-fi-fi (Climate Finance Fiction), which documents the ongoing encounters between financial practices and climate change.

The works in the exhibition are timely and thematically relevant, presenting complex issues in an aesthetically powerful and original manner. Benjaminsen expands our understanding of how humanity’s destructive dominance over nature is driven by economic gain. With a confident artistic language, a collaborative practice, and a discursive engagement, Benjaminsen addresses the core issues of our time. The jury congratulates Eline Benjaminsen on receiving the grant and thanks all the artists for their solid and strong contributions to the exhibition.

– Ana María Bresciani, Elisabeth Byre, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Sandra Mujinga, and Axel Wieder

The annual grant exhibition has been organised by Oslo Kunstforening since 2008 with support from Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. Benjaminsen is the 21st artist to receive the grant, the exhibition being the 17th in the series, with 78 artists having participated in the exhibition to date. Several of today’s most acclaimed artists have previously participated in the exhibition, which continues to draw significant interest from a wide audience each year.

New this year is the addition of an offer for a residency at Edvard Munch’s atelier at Ekely, alongside the 200.000 NOK grant for the award recipient. This year’s jury consists of Ana María Bresciani, curator at KORO, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, visual artist and professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Sandra Mujinga, visual artist and musician, Axel Wieder, director of Berlin Biennale, and Elisabeth Byre, artistic director of Oslo Kunstforening.

Previous grant recipients are Linda Lamignan (2023), Kim Hankyul (2022), Anne Haugsgjerd (2021), Berivan Erdogan, Hanni Kamaly and Kjetil Skøien (2020), Germain Ngoma (2019), Eirik Sæther (2018), Emilija Škarnulytė (2017), Tor Børresen, (2016), Andrea Bakketun and Christian Tony Norum (2015), Ingrid Lønningdal (2014), Sandra Mujinga (2013), Marie Buskov (2012), Kaia Hugin (2011), Ann Cathrin November Høibo (2010), Ignas Krunglevičius (2009), Ellisif Hals and Susanne Skeide (2008).