Residence-in-Nature 2016 – Residence-in-Nature

Introduction by Åsa Jungnelius

Start, opening, beginning and continuation

Residence-in-Nature is not an Artist-in-Residence program. It is not a site-specific artistic work. Rather, it can be seen as an experiment and a method in the scale 1:1. We invite participants from different backgrounds, who express themselves artistically through a host of disciplines, to spend time and work in the region of Kronoberg. Residence-in-Nature is interested in what takes place through this presence and these collaborations and in how it relates to the specific context. It looks at what happens when local concerns and questions meet global ones, and at the result in form and content of the trading of knowledge.

Where can we meet art in a sparsely populated rural area mainly comprised of man-made nature in the shape of forestry, streams, old company towns in the transition from industry to post-industry, small towns, nature reserves, tourists, hiking and canoe trails? The aim of Residence-in-Nature is to let the participating artists live and work where they and their practices meet the inhabitants of the area waiting for the bus, in the forests, by the canoe trails, the libraries and roads. Involving them in a change of position leading to an embrace of the public space as a totality.

What is the meaning of the place for production and material? The glass industry was booming in Småland in the 1960s. Artists were invited to live and work in the region to create a new meaning for an industry that previously had made items for more prosaic use, like milk bottles and light bulbs. A mode of production mostly reliant on local materials like rock, glass and timber, became the node in the construction of a society where crafts, economy, labour and artistic figuration came together.

What type of economic development is needed for the construction of contemporary society when the concept of work is changing and many are swept up in flows of migration? Residence-in-Nature investigates everything from notions of community to tourism, consumption and the construction of society. What does one do for the other, and what does it mean for the collective, the community that we share? In which ways can an artistic production contribute to the discussion?

Residence-in-Nature was initiated by Åsa Jungnelius as a long-term collective art project. It was based on her own experiences of context-specific artistic work in a rapidly depopulating area where the post-industrial condition highlights a complex setting. The landscape in Småland is intimately linked with the material culture that gives the coordinates for our economic, social, political and ecological situation.

The initiative coincided with the wish of the regional local authority to through artistic work find a durable form for an experimental Artist-in-Residence program directly linked to the local context.

Johanna Gustafsson Fürst & Lisa Torell

«Highway 25, sharing society means a common debt»

A hillock by the side of the road is carefully combed. A sculpture disguises itself as a flea market bargain. The shooting range in the woods is turned into an almost living place for memory. It is stressed that a series of roadside places for resting constitute a planning for the unpredictable. Call of nature or epiphany? Filmic notes from the participant observations, presence and performances, of the artists with localities by Riksväg 25 are shown in a closed down bank branch in Skuv and at Växjö konsthall.

To both participate and observe demands as much tenderness as violence. One has to enter the place, or it will reveal nothing. But then the place has to be allowed to enter one. The context leads us to a sensation of the act of doing, which is both the price and the prize. It costs, and it gives. How different is this process if we talk about things rather than human beings? And is it at all possible to find the dividing line between the two? The joined map is in the end larger than reality. The one participating soon becomes an explorer in the only putatively most familiar of all worlds.

Johanna Gustafsson Fürst (1973) pursues as art the surplus of the seemingly mundane can produce. She invites the material to ’take space’ in order ’make room’ for an understanding of the meeting of the thing with the thingliness of an immaterial system. Johanna graduated 2003 from the Royal College of Art, Stockholm (MFA).

Lisa Torell (1972) is interested in how what is becomes what it becomes. She turns the fleeting nature of society to her advantage for a deft exploration of societal systems. Her work is at the same time, including the written work, related to the specific character of different places. She is educated at Konstfack (MFA, 2001) and is now part of the Norwegian program for artistic research.

Link to sites

Hilda Hellström

«Asynja»

A place often preserves its origin through a process for which it does not matter if the story is true or invented. At the same time, fiction intertwines with the reality it was first set to reflect. It is women’s right, might and poetry that comes to the surface in a little creek, a waterway like the ones where women in the past held their fertility rites. Here we encounter the tale of Blenda who stood up against the Danes and who came to represent the independence of a place and a gender. We barely make her out, but the contorted mirror of the water is also a witness.

Hilda Hellström (1984) lingers in the relationship between the ambiguously distant and that which still is palpably close. Through craft processes that meet contemporary art she makes space for an investigation of the senses, by the senses. She holds an MFA from the Royal College of Art, London.

Link to site

Klara Hobza

«You Came for the Killing, Didn't You?»

Sprängticka, platsdokumentation av Terje Östling

The recording of knowledge, as opposed to an oral and personal transmission of the same, tends to make it valid for all times. Klara Hobza searches for the space between the two in a book inspired by her conversations with Markus Vallien. How is it possible to write a subjective survival handbook and how does it become relevant outside of a specific imaginary? Or can the specificity even be avoided? All interaction with nature is singular; it is with a specific nature. This is a project that transforms the hurdle into an entrance. Media is no longer cut off from nature.

Klara Hobza (1975) seeks after the hidden rooms of personal and emotional investments in natural science and technology. She often approaches her topics through a fascination with a real impossibility that also becomes a new sensorial reality. She is from the Czech Republic, lives in Berlin and is educated at Columbia University, among other places.

Link to sites

Åsa Jungnelius

«Landscape Paintings»

The concept is calibrated to the point of art through a questioning of art’s instinct to represent, its wish to tell stories. The image becomes palpable. The landscape is endlessly repainted, but if it is not re-connected to the body and the soil, it does not become disconcertingly familiar again. A bandstand in the nature-culture of a camping site is painted in intimate pink pastel, as though the backdrop for the gaze had a skin-like inside suddenly exposed. In a series of post cards, nature is arranged, used but cared for, by they who touch its openings, cavities, wounds, secrets, dreams and fantasies.

Åsa Jungnelius (1975) works with and is inspired by material, often glass, to show the breaks and joints between different modes of being: as body, human collective or politics. Sculptural conjunctions lead to the shared room. She is educated at Konstfack (MFA) where she also teaches.

Link to sites

Fredrik Paulsen

«Wurst Case Scenario»

It does not take much to create a room for eternity. Especially if fire is involved. The hearth that has given rise to the nervous completion of functions by civilisation has here, instead, been made to point at the much-needed break. Two barbecues and a table, all of iron sheet with foundations of local granite, by a beach outside of Transjö invites visitors to remain in the place, to enjoy it and reflect through doing something else than thinking. It is possible to only be, if eternity insures us, and then start again.

Fredrik Paulsen (1980) works with design of items and rooms for the living. He is interested in the inside that invariably, consciously or unconsciously, aims at creating notions of community. He is educated at Beckmans College of Design (where he now also teaches) and has an MA in Design Products from the Royal College of Art, London.

Link to site

Jerszy Seymour

«A Treatise on Human Work and Property Rights»

Jerzsy Seymour, foto/photo: Terje Östling

What constitutes a new beginning is mostly decided in the future. A modernity glimmering of laser beyond the modern speaks of an autonomy that, before it is experienced, on the other side of today's capitalism, cannot be felt as anything but mystical. Poetry? Survival? Cave-man art gone futuristic in the service of speculation, but with the aim of already having changed reality. Think again, revolt. Injustice is only the nightmare of a sacked fantasy. We re-group by that which cannot be reduced in a nature that we so radically have transformed.

Jerszy Seymour (1969) finds himself in an ever-growing attempt to create design for the singular in the collective in order to think about the human condition in late capitalism. The objective is to change how change can happen and, in this way, the world at large. He studied at the Royal College of Art, London (1991–1993), and now lives and works in Berlin.

Link to sites

Ross M. Taylor

«The Bony Labyrinth»

To be "in" is an existential challenge intensified by movements and migration. Through abstract paintings transposed to large posters along the bus route Lessebo-Hovmantorp and an accompanying sound work (in collaboration with James Ferris) we are here given a new manner of reflecting a nature. Now it grows when not taken for granted. The works thus become a preparation for the unpredictable. They can now begin to speak back and re-conquer a healthy hesitation in the face of our surrounding nature and language, even for those most at home there.

Ross M. Taylor (1982) approaches existence as a series of complex poetic embraces. He renegotiates the sensorial impressions, making them into marks and traces on various surfaces. An impossible translation between divided worlds that cannot exist independently. He is from London and educated at the Royal College of Art in the same city.

Link to sites

Markus Vallien

«The Room»

That which insists leads us to our destination, but it can never justify this insistence. Wisdom is silent. To insist is to swerve, to know is to be in all times and places at the same time. Archaeology and science fiction become one and the same thing. This is why wisdom costs dear. It has demanded mythological sacrifices and made us pawn our expectations. A magical source or pragmatic bedrock? Seen from above that which insists is an omen for the gods. It shows the way like a comet over the forest floor.

Markus Vallien (1969) lives his philosophy. He works with craft and interacts with nature in a number of ways that explore the relationship between that which is made by human hands and the rest. It is also this meeting that gives the preconditions for his life in the wild and his courses in the art of survival for students at Konstfack.

Link to site

Jonas Williamsson

«Let the simple be simple»

The characters are known, the settings familiar, but still, there is something created there on the fence surrounding Lessebo Paper: the fictionalisation of the habitual is imbued with life. Simple manipulations in one of the most common materials of the designer, paper, suddenly open up a gallery of worlds. Nature gives the raw material, industry the product. The commission gives birth to the form, but here we are approaching a design disguised as fiction. The ideals of modern society have turned into an image-based Roman à clef in shimmering colours.

Jonas Williamsson (1973) prefers to work by letting material and context speak. A patient listening and respectful accepting of the fact that we surround ourselves with always-already given forms. He graduated from Konstfack (MFA) 1999 and has since 2007 run his own studio, where he often works with graphic design commissions in the field of culture.

Link to sites

Konstkollo

Under sommarlovet erbjuder vi barn och ungdomar att delta på konstkollo. Tillsammans skapar vi utifrån Lessebo som plats och tittar på vilka typer av material och sammanhang som kan inkluderas i en skapande process. Med handledning av konstpedagogen Filippa de Vos från Växjö konsthall utformas dagarna med konstnärliga aktiviteter tillsammans med alla deltagare. Konstollo kräver ingen tidigare erfarenhet och är kostnadsfritt. Alla är välkomna!

Residence in Nature – Konstkollo I
När: 8 – 12 augusti, kl. 13-15
Var: Lessebo Bibliotek
Hur: Drop-in! Alla välkomna!

Residence in Nature – Konstkollo II
När: 15-19 augusti, kl. 13-15
Var: Lessebo bibliotek
Hur: Drop-in! Bara för tjejer 13-17 år

Kontakt:
Filippa de Vos, intendent för pedagogik, Växjö konsthall
filippa.devos@vaxjo.se eller 0470 414 75

«Scale 1:1», Symposium on Context-Specific Art

Day 1
Thursday 25 August 2016

Location: The session starts at Lessebo Folkets Hus, continues by bus, and concludes with dinner at Transjö Folkets Hus

12 noon Registration and coffee at Lessebo Folkets Hus
1 pm Åsa Jungnelius introduces Residence-in-Nature Lisa Rosendahl introduces the symposium
1.15 pm Heidi Vassi introduces the local context: geographic and historical conditions
1.30 pm Collective walk to Lessebo Paper Mill, viewing of the work by Jonas Williamsson
1.45 pm Heidi Vassi: the industrial past and present in Kronoberg County
2 pm Viewing of the work by Hilda Hellström
2.15 pm Bus departs
2.30 – 7 pm Tour of the works by Lisa Torell and Johanna Gustavsson Fürst, Ross M. Taylor, Åsa Jungnelius, Markus Vallien, Fredrik Paulsen, with reflective interventions by Axel Andersson
7 – 8 pm Break for putting up tents at Transjö Folkets Hus
8 pm Visit the work of Jerszy Seymour by bus
9 pm Dinner at Transjö Folkets Hus

Day 2
Friday 26 August 2016

Location: Transjö Folkets Hus

10 am Lisa Rosendahl: summary of the previous day and introduction to the second day of the symposium
10.15 am Emma Smith: presentation and discussion
11.15 am Klara Hobza: book presentation
11.45 am Markus Vallien: how to make fire
12.30 – 1.15 pm Lunch
1.15 pm Mårten Björk: presentation and discussion
2.15 pm Karin Lindroth, The Non-existent Centre / Ställbergs Gruva: presentation and discussion
3 – 4 pm Concluding discussion & coffee
End

The tour includes breaks for coffee, snacks and refreshments and is followed by a dinner and party at Transjö Folkets Hus. Food by Erik Gärdvall and Sara Söderberg. DJ: Jenny Silver. All times are approximate and will be updated on the day.

///

The symposium Scale 1:1 is developed in relation to the art project Residence-in-Nature, which takes place in different localities in the Region of Kronoberg during the summer of 2016. Residence-in-Nature takes as its starting point the landscape and its cultural, economic and political aspects. The symposium brings together the participating artists with invited guests to discuss what it means to work context-specifically as an artist today, and how art can make us think about concepts such as site, countryside and nature from different perspectives.

How do artists create methods for working in depth with a certain context? Can one bring the same method to different places and still claim to work with the notion of the specific? How do different time frames — to be a temporary visitor or a permanent resident — affect what becomes possible? What problems and potentials are involved when addressing local and global audiences at the same time? What new forms of artistic and institutional practices do we see emerging through intensified relationships with local contexts? What is the local anyway?

How is the perception of sparsely populated rural areas changing in a post-industrial present where the boundaries between the city and the countryside, and between nature and culture, are being re-negotiated? Has «site» and «the specific» become exotic and desirable properties — so called Unique Selling Points — for the experience of culture in an increasingly homogenized world? Or should we understand the growing interest for the context-specific in art as a form of tactile resistance against a generally abstracted existence?

The title Scale 1:1 makes reference to the working method used in Residence-in-Nature whereby the artistic process is shaped by the artists’ presence in a specific place for a limited time. The symposium employs the concept of Scale 1:1 as a general approach in order to ask questions about, and test the forms for, «situated» knowledge production in relation to site, body and thought.

///

NOTIFICATION OF ATTENDANCE
Send an email with name, phone number and any special dietary requests to info@residence-in-nature.se Price: SEK 300, for the cost of food, middle course, dinner, breakfast and lunch are served. Accommodation (tents) and the bus tour is included in the price.

PACKING LIST
Tent (if you don’t have a tent it is also possible to sleep in a common dormitory tent), sleeping bag, sleeping mat, flashlight, towels, bathing suits (it is possible to take a swim in the lake, no showers avaliable), good shoes, some of the art works can be more or less difficult to access, so bring leisure shoes, mosquito repellent.

WELCOME!

Summer Program

FÖRSLAG PÅ RUNDTUR
ca 4 timmar

Åsa Jungnelius
«Landskapsmålningar»
Gökaskrattscamping i Hovmantorp
Här finns också en restaurang och badmöjligheter.

Klara Hobza
«You came for the killing, didn’t you?»
På biblioteket i Hovmantorp finns överlevnadshandboken (efter den 25 augusti).

Johanna Gustafsson Furst & Lisa Torell
«Riksväg 25, dela samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld»
Vandra in längs hela skjutbanan vid Hovmantorp.

Ross Taylor
«Den beniga labyrinten»
Ladda ner och lyssna på ett ljudverk när du åker mellan busshållplatserna mellan Hovmantorp och Lessebo.

Johanna Gustafsson Furst och Lisa Torell
«Riksväg 25, dela samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld»
Plocka skräp på parkeringsficka vid Riksväg 25.

Jerszy Seymour
«En avhandling om mänskligt arbete och äganderätt»
I skogen på väg mot Strömbershyttan ladda ner och läs «The manifest of the every-topia».

Jonas Williamsson
«Låt det enkla vara enkelt»
Vid Lessebo pappersbruk, gör flera nedslag runt om fabriksområdet.

Hilda Hellström
«Asynjorna»
En bit nedför ån, på andra sidan vägen från pappersbruket.

Markus Vallien
«Rummet»
Sväng av från vägen mellan Lessebo och Kosta, följ stigen och vandra in i skogen.

Fredrik Paulsson
«Wurst case scenario»
Grustag i Transjö här finns det också möjlighet att ta sig ett bad.

Johanna Gustafsson Furst & Lisa Torell
«Riksväg 25, dela samhälle innebär en gemensam skuld»
Handlarn i Skruvs centrum. Filmiska anteckningar från konstnärernas deltagande observationer 30 min. Ät gärna på Skruvs pizzeria.

///

SOMMARPROGRAM

3 juli, kl 19
Visning av Markus Valliens installation Rummet
Plats: Se karta

17 augusti, kl 13-16
Guidad visning av Åsa Jungnelius till alla verken.
Anmälan: info@residence-in-nature.se
Kläder efter väder och bra skor för vandring i varierad terräng
Gökaskratts Camping Hovmantorps

19 augusti, kl 20
Filmvisning «Astralkvinnorna» av Linda Persson
Ett verk runt legender, stenbrott och häxor filmat på ön Blå Jungfrun med lokala skådespelerskan Siw Carlsson
Samtal efter visningen mellan Linda Persson och Siw Carlsson
Korv med bröd och popcorn serveras under kvällen
Plats: Utomhusscenen på Gökaskratts camping i Hovmantorp

8–12 augusti, kl. 13–15
Residence in Nature – Konstkollo I
Drop-in! Alla välkomna!
Lessebo Bibliotek

15–19 augusti, kl. 13–15
Residence in Nature – Konstkollo II
Drop-in! Bara för tjejer 13-17 år
Lessebo bibliotek

24 augusti kl 18.00–20.30
Föreläsning «Slutet på slutet» med Anita Malmqvist
Konstnären och odlaren Anita Malmqvist med ett långvarigt intresse för kopplingen mellan film och ekofilosofi föreläser om filmens död, naturens död och det odöda Internet.
Bar och Pizza till självkostnadspris serveras efter föreläsningen i samband med ett öppet samtal.
Plats: fd. banklokalen i Skruv

Datum: TBA
Grillkväll ”Wurst Case Scenario”
Grillarna tänds av och med Fredrik Paulsen kl 16. Det finns möjlighet att köpa korv på plats men går också bra att ta med egen.
Transjö grustag

I samband med den pågående utställningen, KONST ETC. finns det möjlighet att vara med på en guidad visning med Åsa Jungnelius, konstnärlig ledare, till alla verken den 17 augusti mellan kl 13–16.
Anmälan skickas till info@residence-in-nature.se.
Samling vid Gökaskratts Camping i Hovmantorp.
Kläder efter väder och bra skor för vandring i varierad terräng

Colophon

Thanks to: Gökaskratts camping, Lessebo Kommun, Lessebo Handpappersbruk, Lessebo Paper AB, Lessebo Folkets Hus, Lessebo Hembygdsförening, Lessebo bibliotek, Hovmantorps bibliotek, Bikupans högstadieskola, Emmaboda Granit AB, Transjö Folkets Hus, Jan-Gustav Gustafsson, Lessobo ÅC, Länstrafiken Kronoberg, Lessebo Hus, Svea Skog, Pizzeria Skruv, Handlarn Skruv, KVANT Ltd, L&B Delikatesser Hovmantorp, SPA Produkter AB, Stena Aluminium AB, Jema AB, Göran Johansson

Participators: Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Hilda Hellström, Klara Hobza, Åsa Jungnelius, Fredrik Paulsen, Jerszy Seymour, Ross M Taylor, Lisa Torell, Markus Vallien, Jonas Williamsson. Also participating: Axel Andersson, Nicolas Hansson, Jenny Käll, Lisa Rosendahl, Fredrik Sandblad, Filippa de Vos, Terje Östling

Text: Axel Andersson
Photo: Terje Östling
Graphic design: Jonas Williamsson
Programming: Erik Betshammar

Contact: info@residence-in-nature.se

Residence-in-Nature and the symposium Scale 1:1 are made with the support from Region Kronoberg and Växjö Kommun, in collaboration with Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International programme for visual artists.

© Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.