Under the same roof

BABEL presents «Under the same roof», a duo exhibition by Carlos A. Correia and Enrique Roura, opening 8 May 2026 at 18:00.

The exhibition is structured around a collaborative installation that gives the show its title. The ceiling of the gallery's entrance hall has been tiled with skjenning — a traditional Norwegian flatbread, sugared on one side — forming a large-scale mosaic incorporating symbolic imagery across its surface. Shelves beneath the tiled ceiling hold additional pieces of skjenning that visitors are invited to take home. The bread has been treated and is not intended for consumption. The gesture is participatory: the work extends beyond the gallery space through the objects visitors carry with them. Skjenning is rooted in the food traditions of Trøndelag and functions here as both material and cultural reference point, connecting the artists' different backgrounds — Mexico, Portugal, and Norway — through a shared, everyday substance. Bread as a medium allows the artists to address questions of care, cultural identity, and collective responsibility without reducing them to illustration.

Within this framework, Correia presents The Body It Returns To, a multi-channel video installation focused on intimate, repetitive bodily gestures: nail-biting, cheek-chewing, knuckle-cracking, hair-twisting. The gestures are filmed in extreme close-up and looped, detached from the identity of the person performing them. The work moves between self-soothing and self-harm, drawing attention to aspects of mental health that are often invisible or stigmatised, and inviting empathy rather than judgment.

Roura presents At a Point of No Convergence, a series of sculptures made from copper, 3D-printed PLA, and wooden rods. The works take the node — a point of connection between materials, systems, or processes — as their central concern. Combining natural, industrial, and digital materials, the sculptures address the contradictions of technological development: its capacity to connect and innovate alongside its role in extraction, waste, and ecological damage.

Together, the three works examine interdependence and fragility at different scales — the body, the material object, and the built environment. The installation in the entrance hall frames the exhibition spatially and conceptually, situating both Correia's and Roura's individual works within a shared set of concerns around connection, vulnerability, and responsibility.

As skjenning - a flatbread made to accompany - the artists invited poet and architect Margrethe Aas to contribute a new poem. The text is not a description of the exhibition but an entry point into it: something that rests on the platform the artists have built and opens it further.

The exhibition is supported by Trondheim kommune, Norway Arts Council and Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond.