For more than 50 years, Tendencies has been a key platform for Nordic craft, highlighting and exploring material-based practices. Since its first edition in 1971, the exhibition has evolved from a national survey into a broader Nordic dialogue.
In 2026, the focus turns to ceramic art and to the questions that arise in the encounter between hand, material, and thought. What can emerge through clay—this ancient, malleable material found right beneath our feet?
Kneaded. Shaped. Fired. brings together artists working with the plasticity, weight, and resistance of clay. Across diverse expressions, a quiet yet powerful interplay unfolds between hand and material. The deep history of clay meets the contemporary gaze in works that stand strong on their own while also forming a cohesive whole marked by variation and rhythm.
Each artist is given an individual space, and several works are presented on gently curving platforms inspired by the building’s historic interior from 1866. The neutral exhibition spaces allow the works to come forward, enabling the material to speak without distraction.
In Kneaded. Shaped. Fired., works by Erik Pløen (1925–2004) are presented in a dedicated room. Pløen was a pioneer of modern Norwegian ceramics and the initiator of the first Tendencies exhibition in 1971. His experimental work with glaze, technique, and form from the mid-1950s functions here as a parallel historical voice.
The artists:
Wisam Al-Samad (NO)
Anton Alvarez (SE)
Christina Schou Christensen (DK)
Ane Fabricius Christiansen (DK)
Anders Hald (DK)
Fanny Ollas (SE)
Erik Pløen (NO)
Andrea Scholze (NO)
Astrid Sleire (NO)
Nina Andrea Standerholen (NO)
Curatorial group: Anja Bjørshol, Nicolas Hughes and Marthe Næstby.
Galleri F 15 wishes to extend warm thanks to the Pløen family and the National Museum in Oslo for the loan of works by Erik Pløen; to the Clay Museum, Denmark, and the Röhsska Museum, Sweden, for their valuable input on the artists; and to Norwegian Crafts for its generous support.Design by Blank Blank Studio.
