Gallery of the Month, Norway
A space odyssey In a converted shipyard in historic Trondheim, you’ll find Gallery MADA – part gallery, part meeting room, and something else entirely; a space within a space, a pocket of calm, a place built for the whole of a human. By Lisa Maria Berg | Photos: Edina Sæther
“I wanted to make a space that could also give space in people.” Artist and architect Mari Asmervik Trønsdal is passionate – passionate about art, spaces and the people in them. “Imagine a space where, when you enter, it fills you with calm and motion – a place where you can feel good and therefore feel good about being in it. That’s what we’re trying to achieve,” Trønsdal explains.
A place for conversation So what is it? Gallery MADA is that place you hire when you need to hold that very special meeting; that place you call upon when you think, I need someplace where I can think effectively with other people. It’s the space you go to when your group needs space to assess and decide. “I’ve been in many meeting rooms in my career, and even though their purpose is to be a space where a group of people can get together and create some110 | Issue 131 | December 2019
thing, they are often not very inviting nor inspiring spaces. They often feel like a place that’s used by many but cared for by none. I wanted to change that,” Trønsdal adds.
When Trønsdal invited Norwegian artist Solveig Slettahjell to come and play, the ensemble couldn’t stop talking about the ultimate acoustics of a room once used to build boats.
The art The space owes a lot of its atmosphere to the art that hangs on its every wall.
The ultimate acoustics Trønsdal also manages, alongside MADA Gallery, the architectural firm HEAT in Trondheim. She’s a woman with fingers in a lot of pies – with pies meaning a whole lot of houses and spaces across town. The desire to make spaces that inspire became the very essence of MADA. “It’s been moving to hear the testaments of people who’ve been here,” she says. “Some said that the light, the feel and the art of the space somehow changed their perception of the day, making a short and relatively dark winter’s day feel more upbeat, almost otherseasonal. It fills you with gratitude to hear that.”
Mari Asmervik Trønsdal.