The city floor of the new Government Quarter

One of the biggest and most visible spaces in Oslo’s new Government Quarter is the city floor, accessible to all who pass through or visit the area. The artist Jumana Manna  completed in the autumn of 2025 the artwork Sebastia, working on the design since 2022.

The square at Johann Nygaardsvoll plass, facing Akersgata, will be one of the biggest publicly accessible areas for art in the Government Quarter.

The square will be capable of facilitating many types of large and small events: ceremonies, demonstrations, speeches and general city life. After an invitation to 10 artists, a jury selected the Berlin-based Palestinian artist Jumana Manna`s proposal.

The artwork Sebastia is an 800m² floor made of reclaimed stone. For well over 300 years, granite has been used in civil and urban structures, in industry and in defences in Norway. Manna invited the government, municipalities, energy companies and others to donate stone from such structures as pavements, walls, dams, power stations, town halls, schools and farms.

Jumana Manna says of the work:

My proposal explores Norway’s material history in relation to nature and the extraction of resources, economy and identity. Through this work, I will explore recycling or reuse as a conceptual and infrastructural ethic, and highlight the idea that something must be given up in order for the collective to continue to live and grow sustainably together.

Jumana Manna (born 1987, USA) grew up in Jerusalem, and lives and works in Berlin. Manna studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo. Through film, sculpture and installations, she investigates storytelling linked to power, language and memories. For the artwork Government Quarter Study from 2014, she took full-size casts of the columns from the interior of the Høyblokka government building. The artwork was shown in the Henie Onstad Art Centre’s widely discussed exhibition in 2014, We Live on a Star, which discussed the events in the Government Quarter during the attacks of 22nd July, 2011. The work was later shown in the Nordic Pavilion during the Venice Biennale in 2017.