Lines of Distribution focuses on a subset of The Kitchen’s programmatic initiatives that extended beyond the institution’s New York space to distribute art throughout the United States and abroad. Flourishing primarily from the 1970s through 1990s, these endeavors ranged from a video catalog and television productions to a touring program and print ephemera. Building on these traditions, Lines of Distribution establishes a temporary distribution channel between The Kitchen and LIAF, whose 2024 edition, titled SPARKS, shares investments in dissemination processes. On view at various venues in Lofoten from September 20–October 20, LIAF 2024: SPARKS takes the Lofoten Line—a regional, wireless telecommunications system initiated 1861—as inspiration to initiate a present-day, international network through which artists and institutions can transmit signals. At The Kitchen at Westbeth, Lines of Distribution explores crossover points between The Kitchen’s and LIAF 2024’s models for distributing art and ideas, bringing together contemporary work, archival materials, and a series of performances and programs to propose new strategies through which distribution can spark reciprocal exchange beyond the model of one-way transmission.

Central to Lines of Distribution is a new work by Wong Kit Yi co-commissioned by The Kitchen and LIAF 2024 and informed by the artist’s research in The Kitchen’s Archives and her visits to sites associated with the Lofoten Line. Traveling to New York after its premiere in Lofoten, Wong’s work will appear alongside a display of materials from The Kitchen’s Archives that illuminates both the artist’s inquiries and broader institutional histories. In tandem, live performances by Viktor Bomstad and Elise Macmillan and a commissioned exhibition poster by Kameelah Janan Rasheed create occasion for artists featured in LIAF 2024 to extend their work at The Kitchen while reflecting on the extent to which the meaning and associations of their projects evolve as they circulate through different institutional and cultural contexts.

Lines of Distribution is organized by Alison Burstein, Curator, The Kitchen, with Curatorial Advisor Kjersti Solbakken, Curator, LIAF 2024.

Wong Kit Yi’s work is co-commissioned by The Kitchen and North Norwegian Art Centre for the Lofoten International Art Festival - LIAF 2024 and Lines of Distribution.

BIOS

Viktor Bomstad is a traditional joiker and experimental guitarist from the north of Sápmi/Norway. He is the current regional joiker of the two northernmost counties in Norway, a one-of-a-kind employment in Norway that seeks to promote exciting joikers in the region. Bomstad is passionate about exploring different sonic traditions and pushing the boundaries of how joik can be heard in new contexts and mixed with different genres. He is regularly seen on the Norwegian experimental scene in different constellations both as a solo artist and in different bands. In 2022, Bomstad released his first solo album Sámi Noise on Nice Things Records. The album is an exploration of how joik can shape improvisation on instruments and includes guitars, synthesizers and sampled archive materials of joik-performances and interviews with traditional joiker Per Hætta. Bomstad’s music tends to be gritty, trance inducing, and feverish, with a heavy emphasis on improvisation. His band Sex Magick Wizards has garnered a cult following in psychedelic rock clubs in Norway and Germany, with their third album Death Grip being released in august 2024 on Nice Things Records.

In September 2024, Bomstad’s new project Devil’s Kin is set to premiere at Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF 2024). The project is an audiovisual performance exploring old colonizers’ myths and representations of Sámi people, mixing them with references to genuine local Sámi folklore and important places.

Elise Macmillan is a violinist, multimedia artist, and musician. Since moving from the US to Norway in 2015 to play Hardanger Fiddle, she has composed music for wandering choir, string ensemble, and percussionists. Her projects range from sculptural installations to sound works accessible as a telephone hotline. In the Shade of the String (Breton Cassette, Oslo) is a song cycle she mixed in a car stereo and released on endless loop tape.

Her music has been presented by the Lofoten International Art Festival, UKS, Kunstnernes Hus, nyMusikk, Music Norway, Landmark at Bergen Kunsthall, KAFÉ HÆRVERK, Destiny's, Haus der Kunst, Shedhalle Zurich, CCRMA, and Land, Kansas City. Recent collaborations include Niilas, Quatuor Bozzini, and the Norwegian percussion ensemble, Pinquins. As Emacs, she has opened for William Basinski, Vilde Tuv, Astrid Sonne, and Tomoko Sauvage, and her music has aired on radio stations including NTS, IDA Radio, and The Lake.

A learner, Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores communication practices and poetics across all species, states of living, states of consciousness, and substrates. She creates sprawling, “architecturally-scaled” installations; public installations; publications; prints; performances; performance scores; poems; video; and other forms yet to be determined. Most recently, she is a recipient of a 2023 Working Artist Fellowship; a 2022 Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research; a 2022 Creative Capital Award; a 2022 Artists + Machine Intelligence Grants - Experiments with Google; and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts. Her recent solo exhibitions include REDCAT (2024), KW Institute of Contemporary Art (2023), Art Institute of Chicago (2023), and Kunstverein Hannover (2022). Rasheed is the author of five artists' books: in the coherence, we weep (KW Institute, 2023); i am not done yet (Mousse Publishing, 2022); An Alphabetical Accumulation of Approximate Observations (Endless Editions, 2019); No New Theories (Printed Matter, 2019); and the digital publication Scoring the Stacks (Brooklyn Public Library, 2021). She is on faculty at the Yale School of Art, MFA Sculpture Department, and an instructor at the School for Poetic Computation.

Wong Kit Yi lives and works between New York and Hong Kong. Her works have been included in projects organized by The Kitchen (New York, 2023); M+ (Hong Kong, 2023); Tate Modern (London, 2023); FRONT Triennial (Cleveland, 2022); Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2021); Public Art Fund (New York, 2020); Para Site (Hong Kong, 2019); Surplus Space (Wuhan, 2018); the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga, 2017). She was a resident in the Chinati Foundation Artist in Residence program (Marfa, 2021). She received an MFA from Yale University. She has taught university courses about performance, video art, and new media and currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts (New York) in the MFA Fine Arts program. Even when not teaching, she can’t quit lecturing people, and continues to do so in her signature karaoke-inspired lecture format. She is the co-chair of LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Hong Kong, and a die-hard member of KFC(kombucha fan club).