The article is based on a lecture performance titled “Archipelagic Rehearsals – Abstract as Score” that was presented at the RGS-IBG conference, held jointly by the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers, in Cardiff in 2018. The presentation was an exploration of a possibility to practice, in Édouard Glissant’s terms, “archipelagic thinking” by presenting a lecture with interaction from the audience, as a lecture performance. That “archipelagic experiment” is continued in the article through an attempt to format the performance as an academic text. In turn, the text is an attempt to create new imaginaries and storytelling with Spanish slugs through participatory artistic experimental practice. The writing as artistic practice offers the potential for becoming and as such it is unpredictable in its outcome. The article starts with the author’s framing of Glissant’s poetics and attempts a feminist and more-than-human approach to present the event – the performance of the lecture and the story of the slug in footnotes that were an integral part of the lecture.

Our topic concerns how to conduct practice-based research between and within three aesthetic disciplines: sculptor, professional taster, and performative artist. We continue to work with the material and experiences developed during the 3-year VR-funded HAPTICA research project. Our plan is to actualise a few practical situations that show how we gained both a deeper aesthetic knowledge within our own artistic disciplines and grew more sensitive and knowledgeable about the challenges faced in the other disciplines. The overall topic has been to expand the field of aesthetics by including the proximity senses: tactile, haptic, smell, taste, and movement by conducting artistic research in haptic.

Mest av allt önskar jag att det var mitt namn som stod på dörren. Då skulle jag måla väggarna randiga och köpa husdjur. Känna mig fri. Men jag orkar inte vänta 10,5 år i bostadskön, så nu skapar jag min egna bostads-utopi. Jag har flyttat fjorton gånger och det räcker nu.

I mitt examensprojekt använder jag färg och textilt konsthantverk för att ifrågasätta Stockholms bostadspolitik. 

The most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. More than 50 cases of abuse against women a day are reported in Sweden, and on average a man in Sweden kills a woman he has or has had a relationship with every three weeks. A social and human commitment can be the difference between life and death. It is time to direct focus and responsibility towards the men, you, me and society. Architects and interior architects have long had knowledge of how to design safe public spaces in outdoor environments. But the fact is that only 15% of all reported rapes are committed in outdoor environments. The remaining 85% is done in her own home by a person she has a relationship with or a relative. The field of Architecture and Interior Design should have knowledge of domestic violence and take this into account in their practice.

"Home is where her horror is" is based on the fact that the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home, this is further explored and shaped in three statements:

-Line 1: The field of Architecture, Interior Architecture and design needs knowledge of domestic violence and take this into account in their practice.

-Line 2: In collaboration with material from the organisation "Huskurage", design and create a mobile information site in an apartment building to promote conversations and spontaneous meetings between neighbours, raise awareness about domestic violence and introduce Huskurage.

-Line 3: Shape a home from the abused woman's perspective on a 1:1 scale during Konstfack's spring exhibition 2023. To raise awareness and inform the visitor through art, spatial design, design, film and performance with the ambition of evoking reaction that leads to action.

I mitt arbete har jag utforskat det konstnärliga religiösa arvet och hur bilder, symboler och fysiska föremål är grundläggande för kulturellt konsensus. Jag har utforskat fenomenet i gemensam tro på något övernaturligt och abstrakt med hjälp av klädkoder, måleri, skulptur, text och rumslig gestaltning. Inspirationen har jag tagit från bland annat kyrkobyggnadens sceniska egenskaper, där föreställningar tar plats. Ett annat tema i verket är kopplingarna till ritualen och innebörden i handlingen, liksom betydelsen av ord och bilder för människors förmåga att forma en tro på något immateriellt. Upplevelse och inlevelse är viktiga delar i vidareförandet av budskap, både inom konst och religion. Min intention med det här verket är kort sagt ett experiment och en parafras på religiös visuell kommunikation, och att jag försökt samla den kärnfulla symboliken som blivit bevarad i det, utifrån min egen tolkning och erfarenhet. Vem eller vilka det här är för är egentligen inte det viktigaste i min mening, utan jag ser det som ett personligt undersökande av något som intresserar mig och förhoppningsvis andra med.

The core question in this master thesis is: What happens to the essence of an object when it becomes out of date and is no longer in use? I am addressing the sense of dignity in once meticulously designed technical/mechanical items that now has become obsolete. The intention has been to investigate how to give new meaning to obsolete items and find new eligibility for their existence. 

The investigation was conducted through the development of a method: collection, analysis, deconstruction, investigation and resurrection of a number of O.T.M.I. (Obsolete Technical Mechanical Items).  

The resurrection process consisted of the (re-)writing of the objects’ narratives. These stories along with the objects’ parts, spaces and sounds created a frame for a scenography, a soundtrack and characters to act in a film to tell the story.

As interior designers we have the opportunity to transform space and fill it with stories. Imagination is an important tool: We benefit from having the ability to imagine, for instance, how different surfaces will reflect sound and light. Our imagination is highly visual. So I have transformed my imaginary world of Obsolete Technical Mechanical Items to visual and audial elements that support the content and values of a story through researching the objects, finding how to clarify and support the story. The Re-Story.

Traditionella redovisningsformer i grundskolans bildämne skapar sällan utrymme för lärande.

Trots att bild är ett estetiskt ämne genererar ofta redovisningsformer ett passivt

förhållningssätt gentemot det som eleverna redovisar. Att redovisa inför en grupp kräver

kommunikativ kompetens, något som är utanför bildämnets kursplan. Däremot kan elever lära

sig att framträda, och interagera med publiken för att en lärandesituation ska uppstå.

Med utgångspunkt i de traditionella redovisningsformerna undersöks utvecklingspotentialer

där teater, samtidskonst, performativitet och estetiska lärprocesser tillsammans används för att

besvara undersökningens syfte och frågeställningar. Hur kan redovisningsformerna i

bildämnet inom grundskolan utvecklas genom performativa uttryck? För att besvara

frågeställningen analyseras deltagande observationer av redovisningar på tre estetiska

vuxenutbildningar genom att tematiskt kategorisera beståndsdelarna i teman för att belysa och

problematisera företeelser som visade sig under redovisningarna. Gemensamma nämnare

visades, oberoende av innehållet som redovisades, tydligast genom de studenter som deltog

som betraktare under redovisningarna. Variationen på studenternas delaktighet visades främst

genom den respons som efterfrågades och utdelades.

Empirin består förutom av observationerna, även av en gestaltande undersökning.

Gestaltningen har formats ur frågeställningen Hur kan en radikal redovisningsform se ut?

Frågeställningen besvaras genom en performativ händelse, ett performance där uppsatsen i

dess fysiska och materiella form bearbetas genom att mixas till pappersmassa som används

för att tillverka nya pappersark. Gestaltningen visades som ett performance med materiella

spår i form av en installation under lärarprogrammets examensutställning på Konstfack.

matt lambert reviews The Garden performed at the museum of Swedish & Nordic contemporary art & a museum of regional culture in Västerås during the Swedish Performing Arts Biennale 2022

My work explores aspects of the hierarchy between animal and human. I aim to find out how we as humans act, and how we treat animals in a not very humanised way. How would it look like if we would change place with the animals?

To explain the different aspects of humanity, the work includes a symbolic language. I use different human coded objects, that works as an index that I’m creating during the master education. Among these objects are for example a hotdog, pommes frites and a bowl with cereals. During the process, another aspect has been added to the specified objects; the children perspective. Since children are more open minded and haven’t learned the structure of society yet, they are a great inspiration for me to learn how to look beyond the hierarchies in society. How do we as humans think before we learn how we should be thinking? 

One of the symbols I use is the cow, that works as a symbol for the animal. I have chosen to work with the cow since it is an animal that we use as humans to get milk and meat from, yet the cow is assisting and accepting us no matter what we do to them. I feel sorry for the cow, being a calm animal with no intention to do harm, at the very same time as we as humans kill them with no mercy. As a symbol for the human, I use Leif GW Persson. He is a Swedish TV personality taking and getting a lot of space in everyday society, for example in Swedish television.

This project has an ambition to find out more about the hierarchies between different species (including the human). In order to tell the story through children, I have had workshops with them and gotten influenced by their ideas in the making of the installation and embodiment. This is a way for me to get “dehumanised” since children has less time living as human beings and haven’t yet learned how they should behave. 

The workshops works as one method in my project, while another method that I’m using is the sloppy craft. Through this method I aim to both show a more childish and naive way of working with textiles, to make it be looking more as if a child would have made it. It’s also a way for me to question the traditions within textile craft, and to challenge the hierarchic system between fine art and the craft field. Furthermore, it’s of importance to me challenging traditions of personal reasons, since I have always been very law-abiding in general and a so called “good girl”, wanting to be accepted by everyone. Through my artwork I am breaking these rules and that is also a big reason why I’m doing what I’m doing. The most important message in my work is still to highlight the hierarchy between animal and human, and I aim to do it with the help of sloppy craft and children.

A TALK ABOUT ROLES IN A SETTING (2015) is a performative work by the artist Johan Lundin. A choreographed presentation is performed for 12 participants in a scenography describing public and private environments. The production process and performance of the work is describing how roles and circumstances change when an environment is observed through a perspective where fiction is allowed to be used as methodology to engineer new reality images. Through the terms role and setting this publication is focusing on describing how the visual image of the body and its movement has an influence on how identity and gender is constantly formed in relation to the place's historical, social and cultural contexts.

Birds live wild in the city; they among us and we among them. They provoke boundaries; we are disgusted by them and admire them. When we want to get close, they disappear and when they come close, we chase them away. Birds disturb and attract. They are hard to reach – we want them. We can’t reach them. They move freely. They can fly.

Birds broaden my gaze. I can see the world from a completely different perspective where the human being doesn’t have the main role. We humans are so preoccupied with ourselves and it’s nice to meet creatures that don’t care about us.

Basic Blå is a practise-based report about my master project in fine arts, Basic Blå.

Basic Blåis stories about moral courage, responsibility, power and cooperation. It is a site specific performance, a soundwalk and trip to an office in which the audience become a group and experience together. It is a discussion about ethics through the body, movement and a range of viewpoints, were understandings are lifted out of their context in order to create new perspectives. The aim with the report is to describe my process and methods. Investigate the question: if an experience in the passing can give perspectives on responsibility, power and etichs? And to put Basic Blå in a theoretical context in order to evolve and deepen and my practice.

In section V.I - V.III. Participation, experience, embodied knowledge, restored behavior and the affective turn, and its effect on our relation and understanding of our environment and what potential it has as a mean of communication is discussed.

In section VI. the practice of making, performing and exhibiting Basic Blå is discussed. In the final conclusions I reflect over my process, the outcome, the knowledge gained and how I will continue my work.

Dissecting the interplay between esotericism, capitalism, theatrics, and vulnerability within illustration and performance-installation. Trying to get closer to my audience through combining my artistic practice with my practice as a tarot-reader.

In this project, I speculate about a parallel world where a parliament chair for more-than-humans to ‘speak up’ exists within a human fabricated democratic construct. Along the narrative, we are to notice the grammar of other beings and to relearn the ethic of respect and interdependency by ‘deep listening’ to our often ‘quiet’ neighbors on this planet. The intention is to take a closer look at the actant nature of other-than-human beings, at the political of them through exploring the tension between power and empathy. The project adopts voting cards as a probing tool for humans’ involvement in the scenario. It explores the balance between chairs’ power connotation and the materiality of paper as well as the emotional character of sounds. It is an invitation of entering an alternative reality where imagination and affection towards a more inclusive and attentive relation with other-than-humans could be envisioned and questioned.