Kvadrennalen

KVADRENNALEN is a national initiative that aims to show the role of art in a free society, and the necessity of a free cultural life. The initiative includes all art forms and all parts of the art field. The goal of KVADRENNALEN is to elevate art, and give its representatives a voice in the debate about the role of culture in our society.

Konsthall C, Feb. 2022

  

 

Lunch

 

Our final presentation was a day of open personal studios, videos of our various escapades and a lunch for our guests.

 Early on in the residency a practice emerged; caring and nurturing each other by preparing meals. A focal point to our final public Open-studio presentation was to prepare and make food, as a performance, for our guests.

Art/culture as a practice of nourishing the community.

Canaries in the Coalmine

In the context of the impending parliamentary elections, a metaphor emerged for us to work with as a collective; "Canary in the coalmine".

A key issue in the upcoming elections is the future of funding and  grants, for the Arts, in Sweden. Future funding  may be in jeopardy and art residencies like the one we are on, may no longer exist post election.

Art and artists function much like "Canaries in the coalmine", as an early warning system, an immune system, for that society. 

What happens to societies that no longer have canaries?

Our knitting performance explores these issues.

Quarry

 

Water Kaleidoscope conversation

 

Postcards

Mail-art has a traditional heritage as a way of distributing art, and as a way for artists to collaborate. Postcards as a medium of art-expression emerged early in our process.

The social context we find ourselves in, during the residency, is the Swedish parliamentary elections. Mail, posting, post boxes are currently an active and appropriate site for us to work in.

Our rationale is connecting the taxpayers who have funded our residency, with what they have funded, and an actual experience with Art. These taxpayers are voting on the 11 September. A pressing issue in these elections is that art funding may be severely curbed by these elections. This is a method for us to give back to our funders, to share, and to make art which has actual impact.

Two motifs emerged; the postcard and the postboxes. We explored postboxes through performance[s]. Postcards became a vehicle to give original artwork to the residents [tax payer, funders, voters] of Bjorko Alhoma. They are also a means by which we could spread the questions [hand written on the back of the postcards] which emerged during our kaleidoscope conversations. The questions, via the postcard, spread like viruses, infecting receptive hosts.

Postcard process:

A large piece of constructed paper [roughly 2.5m x 3 m, made from found paper] is the material from which the postcards are made: It begins with mapping our bodies on the paper. The paper is further worked by various processes; frottage leaves found in the forest, printing with paint and vegetables, colouring in, collaging, and the finale; a dance process with our feet dipped in the red paint that the buildings, in the area, are painted with. This large work is cut up into 144 individual postcards. Questions are hand written on the back. The postcards are hand delivered to the various postbox sites in the area.

Mailboxes

Lingering on the idea to reach the audience on Bjorko island, with the Swedish election in the background, we allow ourselves to share stories and lullabies straight to the mailboxes