Lisa Torell

"On Highway 25, Shared Society Means a Common Debt, How Were We Thinking and With What?" / Om Riksväg 25, delat samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld, hur tänkte vi och med vad?"

Essay for:

INTE DET MOLNET | NOT THAT CLOUD
Release on Saturday 17 March, 2018
5 – 8 pm at Mount Analogue, Lundagatan 57, Stockholm
Readings starting at 6 pm

A publication departing from Johanna Gustafsson Fürst’s artistic practice. We invite you for an evening of readings and conversations circling around the publication as collaboration, the publication as education, the publication as speculation and as context and locality.

Warmly welcome!


Johanna Gustafsson Fürst’s The Madness Factory (2015) in Inte det molnet | Not That Cloud
Image by Jonas Williamsson

Inte det molnet | Not That Cloud is a collaboration between the artist Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, the editors and publisher Mount Analogue, Jonas Williamsson who has designed the publication and six contributors who give their perspective on works by Gustafsson Fürst in text. These are: Eva Arnqvist (artist), Karl Lydén (art critic and a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Södertörn University), Eva Löfdahl (artist), Marti Manen (curator and writer), Liv Strand (artist) and Lisa Torell (artist, she holds a PhD from The Norwegian Program for Artistic Research at UiT).

Johanna Gustafsson Fürst is a Swedish artist. She is a senior lecturer in Fine Art at Konstfack in Stockholm and is working on a public art project commissioned by Public Art Agency Sweden. She is represented by Belenius Gallery. In 2017 she received The Friends of Moderna Museet Sculpture Award.

Contributors:
Eva Arnqvist is an artist whose work examines issues related to the construction of place, society and knowledge. For several years she has been engagade in the redevelopment of Slakthusområdet, the meat-packing district in Stockholm.
Karl Lydén is an art critic and Swedish translator of Michel Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended and The Government of Self and Others (Tankekraft 2008/14). He is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Södertörn University.
Eva Löfdahl is an artist. Löfdahl was Sweden’s representative in the Venice Biennale 1995. Curator Ann-Sofi Noring writes in connection with Löfdahls solo exhibition at Moderna Museet 2011, that her work “has an inevitable ability to express the enigmatic of the permanent work”.
Marti Manen is a curator and art writer. He has published books like When Lines Are Time (2017), Salir de la exposición (To leave the exhibition) (2012) and Contarlo todo sin saber cómo (Telling Everything Not Knowing How) (2012).
Liv Strand is an artist, working with processes that shape understanding. For her art is a practice in which physical materials can be used to consider certain situations, for instance how central the nation state is in our minds. Lisa Torell is an artist and holds a PhD from The Norwegian Program for Artistic Research/at UiT, Tromsø (2014–17). She explores questions related to the public sphere through performance, installations and texts.
Jonas Williamsson is a graphic designer working in the field of culture. Often with a strategy of using what is at stake outside of its expression, Williamsson’s design could be understood as a design for its non-expression.

Johanna Gustafsson Fürst Inte det molnet | Not That Cloud
Editors Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Diana Kaur
Graphic Design Jonas Williamsson
Photography Lars Arned (3, 9, 10, 21, 27, 28, 40, 52, 53, 56, 61, 62, 68, 73, 74, 80)
Johanna Gustafsson Fürst (15), Jonas Lindström (48), Lotten Pålsson (16), Terje Östling (33, 34, 39, 47)
Repro, retouching Erik Betshammar
Language English and Swedish
Translation Linda McAllister
Proofreading, copy editing Anna Nyström, Frida Sandström (Swedish), Diana Kaur, Liam Sprod, Tris Vonna-Michell (English) Typeface Tratex (K-G Gustafsson), Textra (J Williamsson)
Printing Narayana Press, Danmark 2017
Edition 400
Publisher Mount Analogue, Stockholm
ISBN 978-91-983195-3-8
© Copyright Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, the writers and Mount Analogue 2017
All rights reserved.

This publication was partly initiated by a contribution connected to the Stockholm City Studio Grant. It was produced with support from the Swedish Arts and Grants Committee and the Längmanska Culture fond.

"Place to Place is a book that brings together nine artists' experiences of creating artistic work for a specific site.

"Art is not what these artists are primarly making, to say that would be to islolate their practice and thinking - rather they are creating a dialogue about place, which through art, they open up, develop and share"

Thats what the artist Lisa Torell writes in the introduction to the anthology "Place to Place", for which she is editor. "(Niklas Östholm, Konstfrämjandet Stockholm)

With the artists: Eva Arnqvist, Henrik Andersson, Kajsa Dahlberg, Annika Eriksson, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Hans Rosenström, Martin Tebus and Magnus Thierfelder.



Translation: Åsa-Linnea Strand
Design: Research and Development, researchanddevelopment.se Print management: Wonderful Books, Rik van Leeuwen
The book has been made possible by support from Folkrörelsernas Konstfrämjande and Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing (UiT).

Figure 2224 was a site-related performance that was produced for IdentityLab and gallery DEPO in Istanbul 20 May 2016, an essay about is to read in the book "Between Places".

Between Places is an anthology compiling reflections about how identity is made and performed through the movement of the self and/or experiences of places under transformation. Parts of the book is directly or indirectly relating to the artistic research project IdentityLab that was initiated by Cuguoğlu and Ewerlöf and was executed in Sweden and Turkey in 2016.

Edited by Naz Cuguoğlu and Susanne Ewerlöf
Contributors: Fikret Atay, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Ferhat Özgür, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Liv Strand, Can Sungu and Lisa Torell.
Design by Erik Månsson

Exchanging Notes on Identity & Places
Susanne Ewerlöf, Naz Cuguoglu, Liv Strand and Can Sungu, p.8

Figure 2224
Lisa Torell p.34

Badjelántta Luottat(Traces from the Land Above)
Katarina Pirak Sikku, p.44

Geography, Migration & Dressing Policy
Ferhat Özgur, p.54

Conversation with Fikret Atay
Susanne Ewerlöf, NazCuguoglu & Fikret Atay, p.62

Revolutions break out on ships & utopias are lived on islands
Hera Büyüktasçyan, p.68

"Att ha varit där, varit uppväxt där eller där, eller ha gått i skola där. Det autentiska i att själv ha erfarenhet av en plats över tid betyder något men det är svårt att säga exakt vad. System och logik. Vad medför till vad? Att plats är fascinerande är självklart då den gör något med oss."


Plats til plats - 9 konstnärer om platsrelaterat arbete
Redaktör Lisa Torell

Plats till plats är en bok som samlar nio konstnärers erfarenheter av att skapa konstnärliga arbeten för en specifik plats. Genom boken får vi en inblick i konstnärliga processer, metoder och val.

De nio konstnärerna skiljer sig från varandra samtidigt som de förenas i viljan att skapa konst som på flera nivåer griper tag i och förankras på den plats som konstverket görs för.


Medverkande konstnärer: Henrik Andersson, Eva Arnqvist, Kajsa Dahlberg, Annika Eriksson, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Hans Rosenström, Martin Tebus och Magnus Thierfelder

What does it mean to be human in the year 2070? What does it mean today? In Torell’s sound piece, the boundaries between present and future, and between utopia and dystopia, are dissolved. What used to be science fiction has suddenly become everyday reality. Our bodies are enhanced and degraded through genetic engineering, environmental pollutants, conveniences, and steroids. The body of society is fragmented and at the same time interconnected ever more tightly by smartphones, algorithms, viruses, and drones. The work is based at Korsvägen in central Gothenburg, a place where many different perspectives come together. The voice of the narrator moves among different times and viewpoints in order to bring to life a world in transition, where many events remain incomprehensible until, suddenly, they are reality. What are we choosing not to see today that is already shaping life in the future? And what did we refuse to see yesterday that we have to live with today?  (Lisa Rosendahl) Li...

Potential of the Gap has been about method and place. In site-specific, contextual or relational art, the relationships between and relationships to are critical to the critical artistic licence. That is, relations between or to man, object, situation and context. I have engaged with the relationship between place, language and identity in relation to systems and logic. Convention and function. It has taken place in, about and alongside the public space and semi-public space. The work has been performative, with place and audience as a material in it self, and the gap as a tool and artistic device for challenging what is taken for granted, exposing structures, to enable a rethink and thinking afresh. In addition to developing and strengthening the method, I also wanted to review the terminology of the site-specific field, to make it more accessible and enable multidisciplinary interaction. To simplify certain concepts and to add others in order to more easily be able to share process and result.
Has part(s)
Paper I: Torell, L. (Edt.). (2016). Plats till plats – 9 konstärers reflektion kring platsrelaterat arbete. Stockholm, Konstfrämjandet. ISBN 978-91-637-8863-5. Also available at https://issuu.com/researchanddevelopment/docs/plats_till_plats.

Paper II: Torell, L. (Edt.). (2017). Place to place: 9 Artistic Reflection about Site-specificity and Place-related Processes. Stockholm, Konstfrämjandet. ISBN 978-91-982834-4-0.

Paper III: Torell, L. (2016). Figure 2224. In Cugouglu & Ewerlöf (Edt.). Between Places. Reflections on identity and place. (p. 36-45). Norrköping, Sweden, Verkstad konsthall. Also available at https://issuu.com/creativecukurcuma/docs/between_places_final_ebook.

Paper IV: Torell, L. (2017). On Highway 25, Shared Society Means a Common Debt, How We Were Thinking and With What?. In Fürst & Kaur (Edt.). Inte det molnet | Not That Cloud. Stockholm, Mount Analogue. ISBN 978-91-983195-3-8.

Paper V: Torell, L. (2015). Närmandet, ironi och metod. Paletten Art Journal, 3(301), 2–8. Also available at https://paletten.net/.

Publisher
UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Doktorgradsavhandlinger (UMAK) [1]

"Riksväg 25, delat samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld. Hur vi tänkte och med vad?"

Essay to Paletten #309-2017/2018:

Redaktionellt

Vad står på spel just nu för landets självorganiserade konstverksamheter och mindre konstinstitutioner? I detta nummer inleder Paletten en ny undersökande serie där konstorganisationer berättar om sin verksamhet, sina frågeställningar, problem, strategier, visioner och satsningar, och vilka andras arbete de vill lyfta fram. Galleri Syster i Luleå, Reymyre Art Lab i Reymyre, Konsthall C i Hökarängen, Köttinspektionen konst i Uppsala, Sunshine Socialist Cinema i Höja och Rehab-Shop i Göteborg är några av de som berättar om specifika projekt, och om sitt arbete med själva formerna för att visa, producera och samtala om konst; genom residensprogram, samarbeten, forskningsstationer, tonåriga rådgivare, sommarläger, och publikationer som sätter utställningar i perspektiv. Vi ser feministiska och dekoloniala strategier, och strategier för lokal närvaro och att vända blicken och se det lokala istället för det internationella eller kända namn. Återkommande är kampen mot hyreshöjningar för att behålla sina lokaler (andra arbetar hyresfritt i en källarskrubb och utökar kanske till tvättstugan). "Alla låginkomsttagare och ideella organisationer börjar nu känna effekten av nyliberalismen på fastighetsmarknaden”, skriver Mossutställningar från sina lokaler i Värtahamnen i exploateringens
Stockholm, som de riskerar att bli av med. Nomad i Göteborg upplåter istället illfälliga rum på olika platser i staden till konstnärer som får fria händer att visa sina verk utan kuratorer i en stödstruktur som gör det möjligt för konstnärer att kuratera sitt arbete som de vill, och få assistans. Reymyre Art Lab arbetar fram en studieform som gör motstånd mot att tänka landsbygdsområden som esurser som ska exporteras och utvinnas som helgutflykter, sommarstugor och turistupplevelser av hantverksproduktion.

På platser runt Hovmanstorp i Småland, fortsätter Palettens serie med verkberättelser i konstnärers egna ord, med att Lisa Torell skriver om sitt och Johanna Gustavsson Fürsts verk Riksväg 25, delat samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld. Erfarenheten av arbete på (en) plats i ett lokalt geografiskt sammanhang, ger ett slags kunskapsnärvaro eller improvisationskunskap. Kompetensslumpen, kallar Torell den i texten, som via två konstnärers val under processens gång försöker komma åt kunskapandet i detta. Torell sätter egna
begrepp som svarsansvar, preformance och kompetensslumpen i bruk, och låter dem möta Benjamins jetztzeit och situerad kunskap à la Donna Haraway med flera. För att kunna arbeta med konstnärlig frihet nom olika projekt, måste konstnären tänka inte bara på vad hon ska svara på utan också på om frågan alls är relevant, skriver hon.

Kanske var Documenta 14 varken en konstnärlig och ekonomisk katastrof, eller ett radikalt försök att göra något nytt med den stora utställningsformen. Petra Bauer har varit där och hittar saker  enskilda verk och händelser medan Sinziana Ravini granskar de curatoriska utgångspunkterna för både Documenta och Venedigbiennalen.

I Palettens autonomiserie föreslår Kerstin Stakemeier – i en text introducerad av Johannes Björk – olika strategier för autonomt handlande medan Josefine Wikström har läst Gregory Sholette, en av förgrundsgestalterna till den nya termen ”social praktik”. Claude Lanzmann, filmskaparen bakom den epokgörande dokumentärfilmen Shoah (1985) är aktuell med en ny kontroversiell film en omöjlig kärlekshistoria i Nordkorea. Sinziana Ravini har träffat honom i Paris för att tala om dessa filmer, men också om kärleken till Simone de Beauvoir, motståndsrörelsen,
68-rörelsen och den ständigt aktuella Israel-Palestina konflikten.

Camille ducellier har skrivit ett nytt feministiskt manifest och Iris Smeds bidrar med ett utdrag ur den pågående diktsamling Hora säljer konst. Frida Sandström samtalar med Smeds om bland annat hennes alias, punkbandet Vaska Fimpen, vars manifest också publiceras. Därtill en längre betraktelse av Anders Ramsay över Anders Burmans bok Flykten från Hegel. Den postmoderna vänsterns genealogi. Vad innebär egentligen ”det postkantianska förfallet”, och hur ska vi förstå Althusser, Rancière och hela arvet efter 68-rörelsen idag?


Trevlig läsning
Sinziana Ravini, Fredrik Svensk
& redaktionen

Manuscript to the sound piece Noise Reduction and Glitches - Echoes from the Past and Future - originally produced for GiBCA curated by Lisa Rosendahl 2021 remade 2022 to fit the magazine OEI:

DET TEKNISKA APOTEKET
BERNARD STIEGLER, ANDENS POLITIK OCH MINNETS ESTETIK OEI #96-97

A 208 pages special issue about Bernard Stiegler by OEI's guest editors:
Axel Andersson och Tania Espinoza

ISSN 1404-5095




How shall I come at you, where shall I start? The world has become so fragmented. So much has happened here it is so borderline, of everything. Much is the same, begging is just as frequently discussed these days as when the signs which forbade begging in the surrounding stairwells were put up circa 1900. Anticimex has joined contemporaneity in the same way as the pests and rats. The rat-safe solar powered wastepaper containers with built-in compression and a special app for emptying are about to be installed. Korsvägen has always been a place bringing people together, town and country, death and life, suburbia and city, the city and the world. Transfer buses, cyclists. Visions, new stations, dreams, plans for the future. Perhaps they don't come about, or they become something else. It happens so quickly, one thinks one knows, that something is, permanence, temporality. Can you stand quietly here for a moment and look around? Take a seat. I know, I'm from around here, you see, the trams to Länsmansgården, Mölndal, Angered and Sahlgrenska, I also thought I knew, that I got this place, but now there isn't just a kiosk but a travel centre as well, a 7eleven without a phonebox, the functionalist house which used to be over there is gone, and replaced with experience: Universeum and Världskulturmuseet, perhaps that's where you are right now. Liseberg is of course still here. Go ahead, you can fast forward, the chapter headings are The Beginning, Eels, Navigation through, and The End + Extra material. You can do it in any order you like, the start can be the finish and the other way around. I have engaged articulators, you can opt for English or Swedish, but you can also take a few moments to listen from beginning to end, there is so much I want to say, I don't know how I'll find the time, I really need your help, yes, it may seem a little forced, but what did I tell that curator at GIBCA, 20-30 minutes max, it is still important for the audience to absorb everything, to listen carefully. You're one of them, I believe in you. We can't continue like this, we can't be this unprepared.