Vilken roll har grafiken spelat för kvinnor genom historien? Vad händer när ett museum brinner ner och förlorar både sin byggnad och samling? Följ med på en digital arkivvisning av Grafikens Hus och lär dig mer om grafikens betydelse och historia utifrån ett kvinnohistoriskt perspektiv.
En av Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughs’ samarbetspart, Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska, genomförde en digital kvinnohistorisk visning av Grafikens Hus – i konstnären och tryckaren Jenny Olssons ateljé Tellus grafik som ligger i Hägersten, Stockholm.
I visningen hör vi Nina Beckmann, museichef på Grafikens Hus berätta om åren efter branden, kvinnors roll inom den grafiska konstformen och arbetet bakom en ny samling. Vi får också lära oss mer om olika trycktekniker och hur grafik använts för att påverka samhället, när Jenny Olsson visar oss runt i ateljén.
Visningen är ett samarbete mellan Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska och Grafikens Hus inom ramen för projektet Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts. Sidekick under visningen är Macarena Dusant, curator och processledare för Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts.
⚠️ Notering: Ett namn är felstavat i visningen, tid 09.45. Det ska vara Lina Nordenström.
Filmning och klippning: Palmer Lydebrant.
OM KVINNOHISTORISK VISNING AV: I “Kvinnohistorisk visning av” besöker Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska museer och mytomspunna institutioner och platser på jakt efter dolda historier om kvinnor. Tillsammans med publiken ställer vi frågor om kvinnors liv, möjligheter och förutsättningar till historiker, guider och experter.
What is the state of printmaking today?
A conversation about printmaking at Public Art Agency Sweden, September 5th at 5 pm
Printmaking is an art form loved by many and rejected by others in the Swedish art field. For its collective and democratic aspects there is a potential for prints taking an important place in contemporary art. In a conversation at the Public Art Agency Swedish artists and experts from different generations will talk about the matter during the opening of artist Afrang Nordllöf Malekian’s opening of the exhibition Suddenly it Happens!
Participants: Annika Gunnarsson, curator Drawings and Prints, Moderna museet and part of the expert council for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts; Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, artist in residence at Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts; Kayo Mpoyi, artist; Henrik Orrje, director collection and administration, Public Art Agency Sweden; and Ulla Wennberg, artist.
The talk will be moderated by Macarena Dusant, process leader and curator for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, Grafikens Hus and Annika Engqvist, curator, Public Art Agency Sweden.
The talk is held in Swedish.
Long-term collaboration between the Public Art Agency Sweden and Grafikens Hus
The Public Art Agency Sweden hosts a large collection of graphics from 1960-1990. These were previously on display in schools, workplaces and public offices, making them accessible to hundreds of thousands of people through everyday interactions.
Grafikens Hus and the Public Art Agency Sweden have initiated a long-term collaboration within the framework of the project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts. The collaboration’s point of departure is the Art Agency’s graphic collection. Grafikens Hus lost its entire graphics collection in a fire in 2014. Since then, the museum has been working on building a new art collection. The process has raised questions about what kind of art is selected for a collection and what stories these works tell. Which stories are heard and which are excluded? In the Public Art Agency’s collection there are many duplicates of graphic works of art which are now transferred to Grafikens Hus. In this way, the artworks can be viewed by more people through exhibitions, mediation and research projects.
Suddenly it Happens! Exhibition and performance, 5-19 of September at the Public Art Agency Sweden
In the exhibition Suddenly it Happens! the artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian puts a selection from the Public Art Agency’s collection of prints in dialogue with a set of newly produced works consisting of lottery tickets, print sheets with dream poems, sound and performance.
The Public Art Agency Sweden’s collection of prints and Grafikens Hus’ graphic works created for the state owned lottery Penninglotteriet in the 1990s are examined as the artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian tackles questions about class, democracy and dreams. In a collaboration between the Public Art Agency Sweden and Grafikens Hus’ three-year project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, the artist explores the history of printmaking as artistic expression, as well as a means to portray social changes – in an exhibition and a performance.
Exhibition and performance at the Public art Agency Sweden
In the exhibition Suddenly it happens! the artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian begins in the history of the lottery and puts a selection from the Public Art Agency’s collection of prints in dialogue with a unique set of new lottery tickets. The idea is based on Grafikens Hus’ collaboration with the Penninglotteri during the years 1995–1998 when 75 graphic works of art were produced and then reproduced in miniature on each lottery ticket. The lottery as a phenomenon, with the task of bringing dreams and fantasies to life, becomes the starting point of a performance on September 17th.
The artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian connects graphics, the history of the lottery and the capitalization on people’s dreams in the exhibition Suddenly it Happens!. Just as a win or loss in a lottery can affect people’s lives, the artist allows the audience to decide the fate of the Public Art Agency’s graphic artwork through his performance.
For the exhibition the artist has worked with the concept of the absence of stories and haunting. How the absent voices within the collection thus haunt the archive and, by extension, a collective history. A spectre is haunting the archive. The work is part of Afrang Nordlöf Malekian’s ongoing residency at Grafikens Hus and a collaboration with Public Art Agency Sweden.
Photo: Paul Kokamägi/Public Art Agency Sweden.
Suddenly it Happens!
OpeningSeptember 5th 16.00–19.00
Place: Public Art Agency Sweden, Ateljén, plan 5, Kasern II, Svensksundsvägen 11 A, Stockholm
▪️ Performance during the festival Skeppsholmsdagen on September 17th
Time: two shows at 11.30 and 14.30
In the performance Afrang Nordlöf Malekian explores the relationship between profit and loss when it comes to collective assets. It is a dramatized raffle where the audience gets to play for a graphic work from the artist’s selection of the Public Art Agency Sweden´s collection of prints and the nine print sheets. In the performance an actor leads the lottery and portrays a ghost of socialism from 1970s Sweden. Here, the artist investigated how people’s hopes and dreams are exploited in a capitalist system and was performed for one day in September 2023.
The exhibition is open:
5 sept 16.00–19.00
12 sept 16.00–19.00
17 sept 11.00–16.00
19 sept 16.00–19.00
Welcome!
Long-term collaboration between the Public Art Agency Sweden and Grafikens Hus
Grafikens Hus and the Public Art Agency Sweden have initiated a long-term collaboration within the framework of the project Collecting Thoughts. The collaboration’s point of departure is the Art Agency’s collection of prints. Grafikens Hus lost its entire graphics collection in a fire in 2014. Since then, the museum has been working on building a new art collection. The process has raised questions about what kind of art is selected for a collection and what stories these works tell. Which stories are heard and which are excluded? In the Public Art Agency’s collection there are many duplicates of graphic works of art which are now transferred to Grafikens Hus. In this way, the artworks can be viewed by more people through exhibitions, mediation and research projects.
Graphic design: Johanna Burai in collaboration with Afrang Nordlöf Malekian. In the image art works by artist Birgit Ståhl-Nyberg: “Happy Boys” (1974), “Tunnelbanan” (“The Subway”) (1971) and by artist Berta Hansson “Lekande barn” (“Playing Children”) (ca 1970).
“This is the last monthly report before the summer holidays. The project term ends on August 31st; still, my mind is drawn to summarizing the year that’s gone by.”
June 2023
Read the Monthly Letter #9 by process leader and curator Macarena Dusant here.
Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council.
Moving through the archive: Johnny Chang & MayDay Rooms
–> A Look at Critical Archiving and Organizing Access <–
Welcome to an evening, 8/6 5-8 PM, of thinking together on the possibilities of organizing archives and libraries from multiple perspectives. This program examines how different forms of gathering, especially from and for movements as well as marginalized communities generate various forms of agency, resistance, and collective un/learning processes. What are the various approaches, possibilities, and limitations of these practices?
Moving through the archive_ invites Johnny Chang and MayDay Rooms to discuss how knowledge can be collected from informal, critical, dissident perspectives. Through a lecture performance by Johnny Chang, and a public presentation by MayDay Rooms, we invite the public to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of collective, interdependent forms of gathering.
Elof Hellström, from Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus, will moderate an open conversation after the presentations.
_ JOHNNY CHANG is a Taiwanese-American multidisciplinary designer and artist based in Stockholm. Moving between visual communication, writing, and artistic inquiry, his practice is concerned with circumstances of distance and diaspora, the politics of voice and listening, and processes of sense-making. His work inquires into conditions and entanglements of contemporary everyday life toward cultivating resilient capacities for sensing, feeling, and being in the present. His current residency research with Grafikens Hus is engaged with differently situated archives and libraries to investigate aesthetics of gathering, and terms and methods of access from urgent perspectives.
www.johnny-chang.info
_ MAYDAY ROOMS aims to safeguard histories and documents of radicalism and resistance by connecting them with contemporary struggle and protest, and by developing new free forms of dissemination and collective self-education. Our building contains an archive of historical material linked to radical history. Alongside our material archives, we create and maintain digital archives and databases of these histories, with the hope that these traces of the past might freely be taken up and put to use in present struggles. As well as housing an archive, our building functions as an organizing space for activists, social movements, troublemakers and radicals. We also run a full programme of events including film screenings, poetry readings, archiving workshops, historical talks, discussions, reading groups and social nights.
www.maydayrooms.org
_ ELOF HELLSTRÖM‘s work addresses issues of socio-political injustice in the contemporary city. He has initiated and is a member of various art collectives and self-organized initiatives such as the cultural house Cyklopen in Stockholm. Elof is one of the artistic directors at Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus.
www.medborgarhuset.se
–> The program is a collaboration between Collecting Thoughts/Grafikens Hus, A Movement to Hold and Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus. Curated by Macarena Dusant/Grafikens Hus and Alba Folgado/A Movement to Hold. In collaboration with IASPIS. With support from Kulturrådet.
–> Accessibility
The event will take place in the library room on the ground floor of Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhuset. Medborgarhuset has a lift which makes the upper floor accessible as well. There are no obstructive steps on the ground floor of the building. There are larger wheelchair-accessible and gender-neutral toilets on both the ground floor and the upper floor. There will be other occasional visitors to other events in the house at the same time.
The event will be in English.
Keywords and translations will be available in Swedish.
If you would like to speak to someone prior to your visit to discuss your access needs, please contact: info@medborgarhuset.se
Find your way there:
Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus
Riksdalervägen 2, 129 32 Hägersten
Subway station: Hägerstensåsen
“I’m writing you at the end of April. There’s a sense in the air that spring is on its
way, not least as the light has begun its return. Within Samlande tankar/Collecting
Thoughts I’ve spent time on grants that will enable collaborations and events. Writing
grants entails fi guring out where a project might go, but it also means looking back to
the original conception of a project and, more concretely, seeing how it’s evolved.”
Read the Monthly Letter #10 by process leader and curator Macarena Dusant here.
Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council.
“The year is drawing to a close, and I have just returned aft er some time in Chile,
that is part of the Global South. Moving through the capital, Santiago, I was reminded
of how social movements use visual art as a natural form of expression.”
Read the Monthly Letter #9 by process leader and curator Macarena Dusant here
Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council.
“I have now finished my first two months at Grafikens Hus, working on the Collecting Thoughts project. This time has been dedicated to getting a lay of the land, and planning for what this year of the project may bring.”
Read the Monthly Letter #8 here.
Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council.
“To build a collection is to be in a constant (re)formulation work”
Macarena Dusant is the new process leader and curator. She is an independent art historian, editor and writer with focus on power structures, the public realm and exclusion mechanisms within the western art field. Grafikens Hus would like to thank the former process leader and curator Mmabatho Thobejane for her great work during the project’s first year.
Grafikens hus would like to welcome you with joy as the new process leader and curator in Collecting Thoughts/Samlande tankar! What made you take on the project?
Thank you! It’s an exciting project that discuss the present and understands that a collection structures history and organizes possible futures. The project gives space to think about collections and that they can start from different perspectives, from selection to illuminate. How do we approach a collection? What is a collection? Why a collection? Holding collections within the museum has a colonial background and this makes the project important as it wants to ask questions about the structures that collections and archives carry. In this way, Collecting Thoughts/Samlande tankar is a unique project where Grafikens Hus strives to develop a method for the construction and handle of a collection, and which will be part of our new museum building. I think that the project takes care of collecting as a state of becoming, where there is an insight that collecting is to be in constant (re)formulation. Yet, in Collecting Thoughts/Samlande tankar we do it in a process-based method together with an expert council group and artists in residency which provides the project with academic, philosophical, artistic and practical input. We could see the project as a collective effort because it is conceived together.
Can you reveal something about what you have planed ahead for our audience?
Not quite yet. The project is currently in the beginning of year two (of three) and I am getting familiar with the former process leader and curator Mmabatho Thobejane’s work. She har really built a fantastic knowledge base foundation in the project which I will try to take care of in the best possible way. One thing I will continue with is the monthly letters so that our followers can continue to be updated about the process.
Do you have any book recommendations for those whoa wants to read more about what it means to collect and archive today?
I would like to recommend the publication by Mmabatho Thobejane and that compile the first year of Collecting Thoughts/Samlande tankar. It under production at the moment. Keep an eye for it!
Collecting Thougts/Samlande tankar is a project by Grafikens Hus with the aim to look at graphic print collections in Sweden and abroad from a intersectional and post colonial perspective. The project is funded with a three-year support from Swedish Arts Council.