Margrethe Iren Pettersen (born Tromsø, 1977) is a florist and was one of the pioneering students with a Bachelor from the Academy of Contemporary art in Tromsø. She was located in Tromsø until 2015, and was part of different collectives building a younger art scene there, before she went to Oslo and did her MFA, Art and Public Space program at KHiO in 2019. She is currently based in Oslo, Nesodden.
Pettersen seek to challenge the modern perception that divides culture from nature. Her Sami roots and the oral tradition of knowledge dissemination in the north is methods she brought into her work lately. She looks into different ways of disclosing art. Her work turns out in many different forms and medias, from outdoor happenings, cultivation projects, soundwalks or more traditional pieces in a gallery.
Pettersen use a place, a plant or a river as her starting point in her work. She work process oriented, with cycles and her different projects are often connected. As method she collect plants, sounds and other materials, does field-recordings and move her body in the surroundings she will look into. Learning new skills, talk to people from different professions (scientist, botanist, biologist) can also be part of the process.
In giving plants and their surroundings a voice, she is attempting to activate thought processes, both for herself and for others, in order to facilitate a more complex relationship and care for more than humans. Interdisciplinary, self-organized and collaboration is keywords for her practice.
She has been in the board of Røst AIR, Sámi Dáiddačehpiid Searvi (sami artist union), Loftet arbeidsfelleskap (studiocollective in Tromsø), NNBK (North Norwegian artist unioin). She just ended her engagement in the board making the new organisation BKA (Billedkunstnerne i Akershus).