A collection of poetry, written by the fictitious writer Mikkjel Plassen, published on the fictitious Bondeforlaget (Farmer’s Publishing House), is at the center of an exploration of anachronistic artists’ roles as well as the creating artist’s place in the factory of production of meaning.

The exhibit can be perceived as a kick-off, a product launch or even as a story: A tug of war between two opposite forces; the poet Mikkjel Plassen and the publisher Asgeir Øx. A piece of fiction is put into a commercial context and dressed up as cultural capital, thus ending up as a new piece of fiction.

Plassen writes nature poetry. He is not particularly good at it, but he is very productive. He writes every poem as if it were about life or death. “Boat on Shore” contains his collected works: Four hundred deeply felt observations about nature and animal life, the darkness of the marshland, the pine trees by the waterfall, the glutton on the field and the wood grouse in the tree. Mikkjel Plassen does not give interviews, but he is said to live all by himself in a small house somewhere far, far away in regional Norway.

Asgeir Øx at Bondeforlaget believes that all he touches turns into gold. He is mistaken, because in the case of Plassen he tries to grab a handful of typewritten poems, throw them up in the air and let them descend slowly as conceptual art. Øx thinks redefinition and contextualization. He reads about Marcel Duchamp. “I can use this” he thinks, carving out his ingenious plan: Plassen is a concept-homestead poet. This is something new – and unique – in Norway’s literary history.

“Boat on shore”, the poetry collection that is the center piece of the entire exhibit, is only partly visible within the following context: The book’s cover, a review of it, along with a bunch of poems in their original A4 format presented more as relics than as literature. The intention is to convert the poet into a museum object before he is even allowed to present himself. It is of no importance if the poet has failed in his mission, if the melancholy, the nostalgia and the strong feelings that haunt his soul are not expressed correctly in his strange nature poetry. In the end, his heartbreaking message drowns in a vast socio-cultural stew.