Art and Common Space was established in 2004 by Maaretta Jaukkuri and Anne-Karin Furunes as an arena for exploring the relationship between art, the contemporary and public space. The course was held in a room in the corner of the Art Academy, Kunstarken, which also functioned as an informal meeting place outside the institution, where food, conversation and socialising were central.

Skybar emerged as a similar space when the Art Academy moved into a new building in 1996. At the top floor, the students created a sanctuary – a place for meetings, cooking, events and breaks, characterized by their own initiative and ownership. Despite institutional changes in recent years, where Kunstarken has become more institutionalized as a teaching and meeting space, Skybar has continued to function as a self-governing social space.

The workshop takes as its starting point the tension between institutional structures and student-driven community. The goal was to revitalize Skybar as a place of pause, reflection, and informal meetings – a break room where students can retreat and rediscover community on their own terms.

Maaretta Jaukkuri, who has previously collaborated with artist Egil Sæbjørnsson, invited him to lead two workshops for the students of Art and Common Space. In the process, art and architecture students developed ideas and found solutions together. The work emphasized the collective and the practical: to build, negotiate, test and fail.

The result was a new kitchen, a kitchen island, six-meter-long workbenches, plants, blackout curtains for movie screenings, a dining table made from recycled art projects, a stage, a sofa corner, and a bookshelf. All the while, the process made visible different expectations of what a common space should be – frictions that in themselves became an important part of learning about how community is actually created and maintained.

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