A conversation with artist Aleksander Johan Andreassen about Ellipse, public space, architecture, movement, shopping centres and the relationship between bodies and built environments.

Artist Aleksander Johan Andreassen works across film, performance, installation and site-responsive practices. Through projects developed in shopping centres, urban environments and exhibition spaces, Andreassen investigates how architecture shapes behaviour, movement and social interaction. Rather than treating built environments as neutral settings, the artist approaches them as active systems that influence how people move, gather, observe and inhabit space.

The project Ellipse, presented at ROM for kunst og arkitektur, continues this long-term exploration of the relationship between bodies and constructed environments. In this conversation with Nordrom Kunst, Andreassen reflects on the spatial logic of shopping centres, the negotiation between human movement and architecture, and the role of observation, intervention and play within contemporary artistic practice.

Nordrom Kunst

In Ellipse, the shopping centre appears not only as an architectural structure, but almost as a psychological and social landscape. What initially attracted you to these semi-public environments, and how do you see them functioning within your artistic practice?

Aleksander Johan Andreassen

What initially attracted me was the way certain public and semi-public environments seem to script our behaviour. Shopping centres, supermarkets and transit spaces are designed around highly specific movement patterns and expectations. In Norway, for example, the milk is often placed at the far end of the store while sweets are positioned near the exit. These seemingly practical decisions create a kind of dramaturgy that guides how we move, what we encounter and how we spend our time.

I became interested in how these spatial logics shape us, often without us noticing. At the same time, I was fascinated by the tension between control and contingency. Shopping centres are highly regulated environments, yet they are also filled with unpredictable encounters, accidental choreographies and personal narratives. They function simultaneously as architectural systems, social meeting places and machines of consumption.

I am interested in how small actions or disruptions can reveal the underlying structures of a place and make familiar environments appear strange again. In Centarium and later in Ellipse, I explored how performative actions could interrupt or reframe the expected rhythms of these environments.

Although shopping centres remain an important reference point in my work, they are ultimately part of a broader interest in how built environments shape our experience. Increasingly, I am expanding this investigation into other urban and semi-public spaces, exploring how artistic methods can open up alternative ways of seeing, using and inhabiting them.

Nordrom Kunst

Several of your recent works seem to move between choreography, observation, intervention and spatial experience. How do you approach the relationship between the human body and constructed environments such as shopping centres, urban passages or exhibition spaces?

Aleksander Johan Andreassen

I see the relationship between the body and the built environment as an ongoing negotiation. Architecture proposes certain ways of moving, behaving and interacting, but bodies never fully submit to these proposals. There is always a gap between what a space intends and how it is actually inhabited.

Much of my work begins by paying close attention to this negotiation. I often create simple tasks, scores or performative frameworks that allow performers, and sometimes myself, to engage with a site in unexpected ways. These actions can be choreographed, but they also leave room for improvisation and chance. When working in uncontrolled environments such as streets, shopping centres or public squares, unplanned encounters inevitably become part of the work. These moments of chance are among the aspects I find most exciting.

I am particularly interested in moments where bodies resist the pragmatism of urban space. In films such as Vandring from Ellipse, I explored how playful, physical engagement with railings, signs, statues and other urban objects can reveal alternative relationships to the city. Instead of treating these structures solely as functional infrastructure, they become materials for imagination, play and embodied knowledge.

At the same time, I think of exhibition spaces as environments that are also negotiated physically. My installations often extend the logic of the films and performances into the gallery itself, inviting viewers to navigate, orient themselves and experience the work through movement. Whether in a shopping centre, a street or an exhibition space, I am interested in how bodies produce meaning through their interaction with place.

Nordrom Kunst

Across projects such as Ellipse, Crossings and Centarium, there is a recurring attention to movement, behavior and subtle gestures within everyday public life. Do you see your work primarily as documentation, intervention, social observation, or perhaps something in between?

Aleksander Johan Andreassen

I see it as existing somewhere between all of these categories. Observation is often the starting point. I spend a lot of time looking, listening and becoming familiar with a place before intervening in it. But the finished works are rarely straightforward documents of reality. They are shaped through artistic decisions, collaborations, performative actions and the specific possibilities and limitations of film, photography, sound and installation.

By introducing a performative gesture or a different way of using an environment, I can explore how people respond and how social dynamics shift. Often these interventions are subtle rather than spectacular. I am interested in small displacements that can reveal something about how public life is organized.

Rather than simply recording events, I use film as a way of constructing relationships between bodies, spaces, sounds and narratives. The editing process becomes another form of choreography, where different perspectives and temporalities can coexist.

Playfulness is also central to how I think about engagement. Small gestures, unexpected encounters and subtle interventions can open room for speculation, participation and alternative interpretations. In that sense, play becomes both a method and a form of critique: a way of questioning established uses of space while imagining other possibilities.

Ultimately, I hope the works continue to operate beyond the moment of their presentation. Whether through a screening, an exhibition or an encounter in public space, I want them to generate reflection and dialogue. In that sense, the work is simultaneously documentation, intervention, observation and an invitation to imagine alternative ways of inhabiting the spaces we share.

Excerpt from the film Vandring (Ellipse):

Andreassen’s practice explores how contemporary environments shape everyday behaviour while remaining open to improvisation, chance and alternative forms of engagement. Across film, installation and performative interventions, the artist investigates the relationship between bodies, architecture and social space, revealing how even the most familiar environments contain possibilities for reflection, disruption and reimagination. Through projects such as Centarium, Crossings and Ellipse, questions of movement, observation and participation become tools for examining how public and semi-public spaces are experienced, negotiated and transformed.

More information about Aleksander Johan Andreassen on aleksanderjohan.com

Interview cover image: Pek (still), 2025, from Crossings. Aleksander Johan Andreassen and Cecilia Cissi Hultman