I dont see my self as a photographer, but I make photographs.
I dont ser myself as a writer, but I use text and letters.
I dont see my self as a performance artist, but maybe my work is the result of a performance?
As an artist working with photography, I try to use the camera to create images with their own internal logic, they are images where reality serves as material rather than as an end in itself. I do not use the camera simply to record what already exists.
Likewise, rather than using language merely as a tool to represent the world, I try to use the world as material from which to create a text. Texts are only drawings that appear to be letters.
What you see or read is not always what you get, there is always something else underlying what appear infront of you.
And the performance, is perhaps my physical encounter with the world, an act of gathering, a process that does not try to confirm what has already been thought, but one in which my thoughts comes into being.
When I try to put my practice into words, I reach for terms such as autobiographical and autofictional. They help, up to a point. I use them to locate the work, knowing that they never quite fit. In a research context, autoethnography comes close as well, though I hesitate over that word. It seems to describe something I recognise without describing exactly what I do. My work moves between these terms, and I am not particularly interested in settling the matter.
Maybe this sound to elusive, unsecure and full of avoidence. But I cant find any other way in answering the question; “what do you do as an artist ?”.
What I know is that my work often begins with physical encounters, most often encounters that are close to my self, close to me, close to what I can reach without waking too far to home, somewhere between the personal and the private.
Sometimes it is a feeing that rubs against my skin, maybe a feeling of discomfort.
Like when my clothes are feeling uncomfortable on my body.
Sometimes it is a memory that lingers, a bit to long.
Sometimes it is an experience or a social realitiy that I don’t understand or can’t fit in.
Sometimes it is just my ”self” that I try to understand.
And sometimes I just think to much and over complicate things.
It is basically a stream of different selfportraits. Self portraits in different forms and materials. They are metaphors, gaps between what you literally see and what you understand.
But to borrow a sentence from the filmmaker Jonas Mekas that I find fitting when trying to describe my artistic practice: “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty“.
It is a beautiful sentence that help me in difficult times.
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
