I continually return to the question of what it is that I do as an artist. It is a circulating movement—something I have turned over and examined countless times—and each year and each time it confronts me anew with different formulations of the same fundamental uncertainty. The questions are rarely external in form; more often, it is I myself who pose them, again and again, as a way of orienting myself.
When I try to put my practice into words, I often arrive at terms such as the autobiographical or the autofictional—not as labels, but as provisional points of reference. In relation to a research field, methods like autoethnography might function as a kind of adjacent language, yet even there I do not feel entirely at home. What I do operates more through slippages than through fixed definitions.
A recurring way of working for me is to think through my ideas using both photography and text. They are not separate expressions, nor complementary layers, but function as interwoven materials within the same artistic process. Neither photography nor text comes afterward to explain or illustrate something else; they emerge from the same investigative movement and carry equal weight within the work.
When I write or photograph, it takes place as a displacement of material—a transposition—in which experiences, memories, and affective states move between different semiotic systems. Photography can carry traces of what cannot yet be articulated, while text can take over where the image falls silent. In both cases, the aim is to allow the material itself to generate form, rhythm, and structure, rather than applying an external logic.
Text and photography thus do not become documentation or reflection after the fact, but active components of the work. They function as sites where the work continues to think, to test, and to shift itself. To write through the work, in this sense, is to allow both language and image to operate as bodily and material processes—not as representations, but as actions.
In this way, photography and text are not expressions of an already formulated content, but materials that participate in shaping what is still unclear. They keep the questions open and allow the work to continue to exist as an ongoing movement, rather than as a finished object.
At the same time, it is difficult to see oneself from the outside. What I believe I know about my work is always uncertain, provisional. In most of what I do, there is a strong drive to understand—not in the sense of resolving or explaining away, but of remaining with what is still unclear. The work often begins with an experience, a reaction, an image that lingers. Almost always, it begins with memory: a memory that chafes, that acts as a kind of friction against the present.
Micael Norberg is educated at at the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim, Norway, Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunst in Den Haag, Holland and the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå, Sweden in the early 90’s and has exhibited his art through the years both on a national and international level. Micael Norberg has been teaching art at an academic level since 1996.. Micael Norberg is based in Umeå in the North of Sweden.
Employments
2025 – Deputy Head of Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2013 – Associate Professor, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2018 – 2021, Deputy Head of Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2018 – 2021, Director of Studies, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2014 – 2015, Head of Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2013, Director of Studies, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
2010, Guest Teacher, Time based media, College of Fine Arts Hué University, Vietnam
2007 – 2013, Artistic Project Manager, Time based media, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
2004 – 2008, Guest Teacher, Time based media, Hanoi University of Fine Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam
1996 – 2006, Junior Lecturer, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
Other engagements
2019 – Humlab’s Scientific Advisory Board, Umeå Universitet
2019 – Centro de Investigación en Artes / Center for Research in Arts at Campus Altea, Miguel Hernández University of Altea, Spain
Education
1994 – 1995 – Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden – Master of Fine Arts
1993 – 1994 – Academy of Fine Arts, Trondheim, Norway
1992 – 1993 – Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunst in Den Haag, Holland
1990 – 1992 – Academy of Fine Arts, Trondheim, Norway
Exhibitions and screenings
2025, “Bjurholmsbiennalen, I ljuset av Sommartriangeln“, Bjurholm 2025
2024, “Eight degrees/ Contemporary art on the forest” – Bildmuseet, Umeå (mars 2024)
2023, “Tankar i Hatten” – Umeå Filmfestival
2023, “Anteckningar från Benidorm” – Umeå Konsthall
2022, ”Coronasamlingen” – Havremagasinet, Boden/ Skissernas museum, Lund, Sverige
2022 ”Notes from Benidorm” – Konsthall323, Stockholm, Sweden
2021 ”Region Västerbotten – 2020″, Galleri Alva, Umeå, Sweden
2020 “I will not tell you it will be okay” – Galleri Verkligheten, Umeå, Sweden
2020 ”Making is thinking but thinking is making as well”, – SIPADI Altea, Spain
2019 “And kept as a reminder” – FILMFORM RE:VIEW , Stockholm, Sweden
2019 “Magritte, Foucault and I or the house of Magrittes”, (Micael Norberg and Katja Aglert), – Flexhallen, Umeå University, Sweden
2017 ”Comment penser librement à l’ombre d’une chapelle?” – Galleria Valo, Arktikum, Rovaniemi, Finland
2017 “In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” – PLAN Z, El Espacio, Palau Altea, Spain
2016 “Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness” – Humlab-X, Umeå University, Sweden
2014 “1 / 25th of a second, when everything changes.” – Gallery Alva, Umeå, Sweden
2012 “Klockan tre är allting för sent “ – Folkets Bio/ Galleri Maskinen, Umeå, Sweden
”Jag, Buddha och mig själv” – Vita Kuben, Norrlands Operan, Umeå, Sweden
2011 “Om lycka” Original, Umeå, Sweden
2010 “MOR” Galleri Verkligheten, Umeå, Sweden
“Om sanning och lögn”, Original, Umeå, Sweden
2009 ”SUMI”, Glimtz (online streaming), Sweden
“Schweden für Jeden”, Arsenal, Berlin, Germany
2008 “SLIDES”, Vita Kuben, Norrlandoperan, Umeå, Sweden (Lars Tunbjörk och Mats Gustavsson)
”Galleri Alva Moviebox”, Norrlands Universitetssjukhus, Umeå, Sweden
2005 “VAR DAG FILM”, Bio Abelli, Umeå, Sweden
”BORDERS” Barents Art Triennal, Umeå&Dundee, Sweden/UK
”Volksbune am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz” (Viet Nam kongress 2005) Berlin, Germany
2004 ”BLICK 2004”, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
“BLICK 2004”, Kunstverein München, München, Germany
“And kept as a reminder” , Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Hokkaido, Japan
Publications
2023, “Anteckningar från Benidorm” (Micael Norberg)
2022 ”Coronakatalogen” , (eds. Statenskonstråd , Sweden)
2021 ”On New Proposals from Art in Teaching and Research”, SIPADI Altea (eds. Juan Franco. Martínez Gómez de Albacete, Universitas Miguel Hernández, Altea)
2018 ”The Death Book” (eds. Micael Norberg, Carl-Erik Engqvist, Umeå Universitet)
2017 ”Plan Z” (eds.José Vicente Martin Martinez, Universitas Miguel Hernández, Altea)
2017 ”Artists Teaching Art, Teaching Art in the North” (eds. Jaana Erkkilää-Hill, University of Lapland)
2014 ”A Permanent Mark on a Physical Body” (Emma Ewadotter, Micael Norberg, Umeå University)
2014 ”Kite Aerial Photography – Hué” (Micael Norberg, Mattias Ericsson, Umeå University)
2012 ”The Animation Manual” (Micael Norberg, Mattias Ericsson, Umeå University)
2012 ”Me Buddha and Myself” (Micael Norberg)
Research Grants
2021 – 2023, Swedish Arts Grants Committee – 2-year grant
2020 – 2021, Seed money, Research Grant, Faculty of Humanities, Umeå University
2019 – 2020, Internationalisation, Research Grant, Faculty of Humanities, Umeå University
2014 – 2015, Shutter Angle, 172.5° – Artistic Research funds, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
2012 – 2013, A Permanent Mark on a Physical Body – Artistic Research funds, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
2012 – 2013, Kite Aerial Photography – Hué – Artistic Research funds, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
2011 – 2012, The Animation Manual – Artistic Research funds, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
2009 – 2011, Swedish Arts Grants Committee – 2-year grant
2007, Film in Västerbotten – production grant ”SUMI”
2001, County Council’s of Västerbotten – Culture Grant
1996, Swedish Arts Grants Committee – 1-year grant
Contact: Micael.Norberg [at] icloud.com
