May 19–June 6, 2012
Bildmuseet Umeå
Östra Strandgatan 28
SE90333 Umeå, Sweden
www.bildmuseet.umu.se
June 9–June 21, 2012
Konsthall C, Stockholm
Cigarrvägen 16
SE123 57, Farsta, Sweden
www.konsthallc.se
www.mfa2012.umeaacademyoffinearts.se
Participating artists
Sara Alfredsson, Joakim Hansson, In Chul Jung, Sofia Karlström, Frida Krohn, Bahareh Mirhadi, Laura Piasta, John Söderberg, and Malin Tivenius, MFA Graduates, Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden
Curated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” sang R.E.M. on the radio and TV in the mid-1980s. Released a couple of years before the fall of the Iron Curtain and collapse of the U.S.S.R., it was a tumultuous time in world history. However, this end-of-days anthem does allow for some optimism as the words, “and I feel fine,” close the chorus. With 2012 running across the tops of our calendars, and thoughts of the Mayan end of days on our minds, we are again facing complex upheaval around us.
Located on the banks of the Umeälven river in Umeå, a university town and center of trade activities, the Academy is the northernmost of all five Swedish Art Academy’s and it operates in close connection with Bildmuseet, School of Architecture, and the Institute of Design. Even the Academy has been touched by a tide of change with the standardization of educational practices in the European Union. This, the last year with free tuition for students from outside of the EU, marks an end for a progressive and internationalist Swedish educational policy. This year’s MFA graduates offer some sense of what is at risk of disappearing when tuitions take effect.
Works by Sara Alfredsson, Joakim Hansson, In Chul Jung, Sofia Karlström, Frida Krohn, Bahareh Mirhadi, Laura Piasta, John Söderberg, and Malin Tivenius, will be on display in the new Bildmuseet in May and at Konsthall C in June. The exhibitions are organised and catalogue edited by curators Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh in collaboration with the MFA candidates, who have worked under tutorship of Professor Florian Zeyfang. Contributions to the publication include conversations between the artists and curators as well as texts by Dean, Roland Spolander, and Florian Zeyfang. The catalogue also includes multiples by all the graduates. For a moment, we all formed a temporary community, which connects historical trajectories with the present and the yet-to-come realities. This is twenty twelve, as we know it now.
Twenty Twelve (as we know it) catalogue and website designed by Leaky Studio, Berlin.
For press images, please contact Helena Vejbrink at Bildmuseet: [email protected].
