IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF EMERGENCY
 Sound installation developed in 2021 for Oslo Kunstforening, a 400 year old building in Rådhusgata 19, Oslo, Norway. The work is composed of sound recordings from travels through many years, through many countries. Carefully processed and sprinkled in a room, in a city, Oslo, with a window facing the present and the story layered, floor by floor. A 15-channel sound work is played back from 3 different positions; 7 speakers close to the ceiling, 4 floor speakers, and 4 speakers mounted on stands playing back security information from trains, boats and airplanes.

The work was created by Maia Urstad as a selected artist to the DNB's Grant Exhibition 2021.
Jury: Behzad Farazollahi, Randi Grov Berger, Marianne Hultman, Mike Sperlinger, and Elise Storsveen.
Curated by: Marianne Hultman, artistic director Oslo kunstforening
Mounting technicians: Martin White, Sayed Hasan
Communication, production, and care for all practical issues: Sofia Clausen, CEO Oslo Kunstforening
Thanks to: Trine Randers, Sissel Lillebostad, Lars Ove Toft

Diary notes from June 4, 2021:
A story from a tour of the house that houses Oslo Kunstforening started a small journey in my head. A stucco ceiling from the mid- 17th century in the building's banquet hall shows various animals put together in unrated non-hierarchical order; mythic, exotic, and more local animals adorn the ceiling. They are said to represent the four corners of the world.

I'm thinking further...

The word classification becomes a trigger. The dreams are not classified. At least not mine. In my dreams, I move from a train station in Alaska to a small lighthouse on the southern coast, from a big city in Ethiopia to a bedroom on a cloud. Dreams move us without effort; we ride ants and saddle spiders.

In Oslo Kunstforening’s rooms history seeps up through the floor from the banquet hall on the ground floor, and mixes with the contemporary, with the tram and traffic outside and all the activity at street level. The hallway is the transportation stretch between the time layers, the window is the ear to the outside world, the wind carries the sound.

All the sounds of the world can seep into this room - we listen via our personal memory banks. Mine are taxi sounds in Buenos Aires, prayer calls from Ramallah, protests in the streets of Santiago de Chile, worship services in the urban space of Addis Ababa, Beffen put-putting over Vågen, the wind on Furøya and the tram outside.

Language ... sounds ... the world ...

The work also revolves around the safety information we receive as travelers. We listen with half an ear, in the clear assurance that nothing will happen, but with this murmur of imminence. In case of emergency. The danger potential is served with the softest voice, seductive. Put on your own mask before helping others. It is a floating point between everyday life, triviality, and disaster.

One snap, and life takes a different course.

In ‘In the Unlikely Event of Emergency’, the sound in the gallery space brings the corners of the world together. Through this room we can now and then hear a tram. The sound of the tram pulls us through the world. Signals and bits from different places wave in short flashes. It's like when we search the internet, or search for different stations on the radio, seek out unknown stations and new places. Accidental errors and disturbances will disrupt the soundscape. The work draws us into other times, other places, brings the world in, here, now, and is in many ways an ode to the impulses we depend on, draw on and are nourished by. (Maia Urstad, 2021).