JAM Public
Julia Bruun, 1975, Norway
Pelle Brage, 1978, Denmark, based in Norway
Jam Public experiments with what sculpture – or art itself – can be when it moves beyond the institution. Outside the usual rules and institutional frameworks, anything can happen – it’s like an adventure without limits. Bringing our art into public space makes sense to us, because there’s always an audience that can watch, participate, and interact – and a society and everyday life that art can engage with.
We work with many different techniques, but primarily with sculpture and installation combined with relational methods. The relational aspect gives life to the sculpture, keeping it in constant development. That’s why our projects often include public participation. We see art as a kind of play, where we try to make the interaction with the audience come alive. We strive to make art something that can be used actively – something that makes sense for the audience to take part in.
Thematically, we’re not afraid to mix aesthetics, entertainment, and politics. For us, it’s about creating artworks with multiple points of entry – so that they can reach many different people.
Since 2010, we’ve been based in Kristiansand. We have, among other things, created and toured with a large inflatable museum (2020–present), carried out three interdisciplinary editions of the festival P-ART-Y (2023–2025), and developed other art mediation projects. In 2022, we presented 30 different sculptures in Kristiansand’s main square and held conversations with passersby about art in the project “What Do You Think?”. Since 2023, we’ve been working on a series of performative projects under the title “Bird Politics”, exploring the question: Why must nature always make way for humans?
We enjoy collaborating with other artists in the development and realization of our projects. It’s through dialogue with others that we move forward and evolve our next artwork.
The daily operations are led by visual artists Pelle Brage (b. 1978) and Julia Rosa Bruun (b. 1975). When project frameworks allow, we invite other contributors to join in the development and execution of our projects. In this way, we are sometimes “just” an artist duo – and other times a large collective.
We aim to realize a sense of community through art projects and experiments. We want to share experiences, ideas, and gain new impulses from others. This is both a working method for the future and an experiment that reflects what we wish for society as a whole: dialogue, openness, and inclusion.
Ultimately, our work is about creating sculptural images and situations together with the audience – encouraging people to see possibilities, express themselves, and discover that they have a role to play – at least within this artwork. Or to make them reflect on and feel a problem. We appreciate art where the audience has a direct and essential role.