Carlos Motta
The Immigrant Files: Democracy is Not Dead, It Just Smells Funny
25 January – 4 April, 2009
Opening reception/book launch: Saturday, January 24, 4-7pm
Artist Petra Bauer and Cultural Critic Stefan Jonsson in conversation with Carlos Motta: Saturday January 24, 4:30pm
Curated by: Anna Livion Ingvarsson
Konsthall C
Cigarrvägen 14, 123 57
Farsta, Sweden
For several decades the “Swedish Model” has had the reputation of being ideal, but what is the state of democracy in Sweden today? Carlos Motta’s The Immigrant Files: Democracy is Not Dead, It Just Smells Funny, approaches this and other challenging questions in a two-part project composed of a book and a video installation based on interviews with 8 Latin American immigrants residing in Sweden, who through their work actively fight discrimination and xenophobia based on ethnicity, race, religious beliefs gender and/or sexual orientation within contemporary Swedish society.
The Book
The fully illustrated 192-page, bilingual (Swedish/English) book The Immigrant Files: Democracy is Not Dead, It Just Smells Funny contains an introduction by University of Lund sociologist Diana Mulinari and interviews with Miguel Benito (The Immigrant Institute, Borås), Joanna Castro (Information Officer at Zenit, Stockholm), Luis Adolfo Conde Costas (Sociologist), Carlos Díaz (The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights), Tigran Feiler (www.colombianatverket.se), Juan Fonseca (former M.P. for Social Democracy and director, Diskrimineringsbyrån, Stockholm), Pablo Leiva (The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) and Karla López (former M.P. for the Green Party).
To order a copy of the book: info@konsthallc.se
To download a free a PDF copy of the book click here: www.konsthallc.se/files/obj000001/m722940.pdf
Distributed by Bokförlaget Atlas: www.bokforlagetatlas.se
The Artist
Carlos Motta’s work has been individually presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia; Art in General, New York; and Fundación Alzate Avendaño, Bogotá, Colombia (upcoming). He was named a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (2008) and was a recipient of an Art Matters Grant (2007) and a Cisneros Fontanals Foundation Grant (2006).
Konsthall C
Konsthall C is a non-for-profit art gallery situated in an old Laundromat in Hökarängen, a suburb of Stockholm. The gallery’s activities, exhibitions, debates, lectures and workshops are communicative and outgoing and comprise a kind of democratic social project where art is a way of giving form to our lives and of formulating a new set of problems in response to the Swedish welfare state and how it is changing. Konsthall C receives funding from the municipality, the municipal housing company, the county and the state.
Konsthall C
Cigarrvägen 14, 123 57
Farsta, Sweden
Opening hours:
Wed.-Thu. 12-6 pm, Sat.-Sun. 12-4 pm, or by appointment.
e-mail: info@konsthallc.se
The Immigrant Files: Democracy is Not Dead, it Just Smells Funny is a commission of Konsthall C and was produced with the support of Iaspis and the Swedish Arts Council, in collaboration with Bokförlaget Atlas.
