Moder Evgenia

In connection with Ultima 2026, Marte Gunnufsen's exhibition Moder Evgenia is on view in Festsalen, on the ground floor of Oslo Kunstforening. Join us for the opening Friday 11 September from 18:00!

Moder Evgenia is a multimedia spatial installation based on the life of Aino Theisen – an exceptionally gifted pianist who left a promising international concert career to enter a monastery as a Russian Orthodox nun under the name Moder Evgenia. The work examines this radical life choice and asks what happens when artistic virtuosity and discipline are transformed into a life devoted to prayer, silence and contemplation. The installation consists of film, sound, icons – and a self-playing grand piano.

The film shown in the exhibition was shot outside Tvedestrand in Agder, where Moder Evgenia lives together with a priest in a Russian Orthodox monastery that clearly distances itself from Putin and the Moscow Patriarchate. The film follows Moder Evgenia in the monastery's workshop, where frescoes and icons are made, and offers a glimpse into a liturgical everyday life marked by prayer, silence and choral singing.

A transformed grand piano, fitted with electromagnets and contact microphones, forms a central element in the exhibition space. The self-playing piano is controlled by custom software developed in collaboration with Jonas Meurer-Lunde. The musical foundation consists of fragments from the film in which Moder Evgenia herself plays the piano.

Gunnufsen's artistic practice revolves around outsiderness, exploring how subcultures and groups existing outside established communities develop strong identities and alternative forms of belonging. This has led to collaborations with, among others, drag artists, people with albinism, sex workers, bondage practitioners, strippers, and Deaf people. It is also through this perspective that Gunnufsen approaches the story of Aino Theisen.

Marte Gunnufsen and Aino Theisen also share a common background – they both grew up in Lillesand, where they had the same piano teacher during childhood. Gunnufsen herself went on to study as a classical pianist and piano tuner. Since then, however, they have taken very different paths in life. In Moder Evgenia, Gunnufsen explores asceticism, an uncompromising life practice – and the inner tension between a life devoted to music and a life devoted to silence.