THE OAKS
Pre-project documentation, 2025. Grenland, Norway.
Photography and research by Dølheim/Obrestad (HILO-Project)

A small cluster of oaks, "rescued" but isolated, stand stranded within one of Norway’s largest industrial interventions. Surrounded by construction, machinery, and shifting ground, they remain untouched, yet cut off: no longer forest, not yet felled. A limbo of inaction framed by relentless development.

This pre-project looks at these surviving trees as a site of uneasy preservation, where the language of rescue meets the violence of removal. Left standing for optics, perhaps for negotiation, they bear witness to everything lost around them.

This work forms part of our ongoing inquiry into how landscapes are transformed, not only through extraction, but through narratives of progress that reclassify destruction as necessary compromise.

See also:
NRK: Her er Norges største naturinngrep
NRK: Enorme naturinngrep i Grenland – med miljøpartienes velsignelse