Sofia Landström – practicing researcher, educator and writer
Exhibitions are a tool, not the result. Art should open up for a democratic dialog and rethink the ‘ordinary’ exhibition practises. Martha Rosler: “art make difference to a social movement only when it is made in cognizance of those movements.” . Exhibition making can be a model of resistance, a tool and not the result.
Network Meeting Oslo / Tenthaus Oslo
29-30 January 2016 SCULPTUREHUB arranged our second round-table discussion outside of Sweden. We went to Norway where Tenthaus Oslo hosted us.
We started off with a short presentation of SculptureHUB and summarized our thoughts of the project, Josefina shared her experiences as an artist, asking questions and presented gender related statistics to the audience. Sofia then presented thoughts on underrepresentation and different strategies of All-women-shows, followed by statistics of the contemporary art world. The audience was given time to reflect and contemplate upon the issue at hand while we all took a short break with food and drinks.
As everyone sat down again we opened up for the participants to discuss their own experiences and what they thought was lacking in the art scene. Attending the discussion was artists and curators from Norway and thanks to Tenthaus Oslo´s large network we had a great turnout. This informal round-table discussion lead to an interesting dialog concerning history writing, media attention and the fear of becoming victimized as a woman artist. The talk went from formulating the problems, concerning the writing of history, the inclusion and exclusion from art history and the importance of re-writing such history, to institutional selection and the current situation in Norway, to finding solutions and strategies to challenge the current order through quotas, using the word ‘feminism’ and the importance of create networks for women artist. The idea of networks was a reoccurring notion and seems to be something that is lacking for women artists in their career, suggestions were made for us to start a facebook group and/or find other ways to establish a common ground for women to help each other and address concerns. The evolving discussion manifested how important it is to find a place in art history for women and to establish platforms where we can discuss and help one another along in an art world where we don’t get included. This round-table discussion was very rewarding as everyone shared ideas and opinions, which will be great help in our forthcoming research since it also gave us a hint of what the artists themselves lack.
The following day we had one-on-one meetings with artists from Oslo and other places in Norway. We were very grateful that so many wanted to share their portfolios and their work to us. But for the two of us Marianne Hultman, the artistic director of Olso Kunstförening/Oslo Fine Art Society in Norway was also meeting with artists. Hultman is a curator that has become known for showing art made by female artists, a fact that according to herself is simply that she shows work that she finds interesting and it just more often happens to be made by female artists. We would like to thank Marianne for participating along side with us during the Saturday event. During the second day at Tenthaus Oslo we found prospective names and possible collaborations for the future. We would like to thank all participants, everyone who wanted to meet us and especially Tenthaus Oslo for hosting us.
Text by Sofia Landström
Documentation images by Stefan Schröder/Tenthaus Oslo
Sofia Landström - practicing researcher, educator and writer 