Yesterday’s News

The exhibition Yesterday’s News circles around one object, the newspaper panel located outside Verdens Gang’s editorial building on Akersgata 55 by the governmental quarters in central Oslo. Until July 22, 2011, by passers could stop to read the daily newspaper displayed in the panel. That same day the blast from the bomb that detonated in the quarter, shattered the glass sheets in the panel into a fine pattern. Since then the panel has been left untouched, as a silent witness of the terror attack.

Every day people pass by and stop, probably from old habit, to read the headlines. Most of them don’t reflect over the broken glass, probably thinking its vandalism and that the glass will soon be replaced. However, the news on display are old, now a part of history. In an instant the newsstand turned into a piece of evidence together with the rubble, wounded and dead.

Ahmad Ghossein happened to pass by VG’s building shortly after July 22. He observed the shattered glass and the people standing reading. Ghossein returned again, and again and every time the same phenomenon occurred, people reading regardless of the broken glass. An idea started to take shape, and he decided to do a close study of the bombing and its aftermath from one single perspective, the newspaper panel outside the VG editorial office.

On behalf of the news panel time stopped when the bomb exploded, while around it the pace of time continues to flow as usual. From that perspective the object could be considered as a three dimensional photography, a frozen moment, something that probably appealed to the photographer and filmmaker Ghossein. He contacted VG to hear why they hadn’t changed the glass sheets just to learn that they hadn’t decided what to do with the stand.

For Ghossein the most interesting aspect is not the actual object itself, but the questions that arise around one object as a result of the terror attack. An editorial that doesn’t know how to relate to the fact that their news panel has changed character, how people read it, react to the fact that it’s old news they are reading over and over again, how to relate to the fact that its not about a newspaper stand anymore, and if not, then what?

In the exhibition Yesterday’s News, the newspaper stand is treated as a found object, a readymade. Cinematographic, documentary, aesthetical, physical and psychological aspects of the panel and its readers are presented in photography, film, video and an installation.

Ahmad Ghossein is collaborating with Public Art Norway (KORO), on finding a new location for the panel in the city centre of Oslo. KORO/URO is the producer for this project. The exhibition has been supported by Norske Kunstforeninger.