Dora García: Red Love
Inspired by Alexandra Kollontai, with contributions by Konstfack’s CuratorLab and others
May 16–September 23, 2018
Dora García’s new work Red Love is inspired by the Russian author, feminist, activist, political refugee and diplomat Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) who propagated for radically transformed relationships between women and men. As an influential figure in the Bolshevik party and the acting commissar for social welfare in the first iteration of the Bolshevik government, she pushed through the right to divorce for women, abortion, and full rights for children born out of wedlock. García’s exhibition includes a wooden spiral staircase and cage-like structure which is being used for various purposes during the exhibition period, for example by participants of Konstfack’s CuratorLab programme for their final projects. The atmospheric installation plays on the mission, almost transcendental purpose, and urgency of Kollontai’s life and work, and toys with references to Kazimir Malevich’s paintings, Dušan Makavejev’s 1971 film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, and Los Angeles’s The Museum of Jurassic Technologies. A common denominator is dissidence, both heroic and unheroic, as well as failure and exile, and how radical imagination can be put in motion.
Tensta Museum Continues: Pınar Öğrenci
May 16–October 6, 2018
Pınar Öğrenci’s video Mawtini will be shown as part of Tensta Museum Continues, in Tensta konsthall’s reception gallery. “Mawtini (My homeland)” is a popular poem written by the Palestinian poet İbrahim Tuqan (1905–1941) in 1934. Since then it has been the national anthem of Palestine and Iraq, and it has been recognised as the official anthem of the Palestinian independence struggle, and by other countries in the region, mainly Syria and Algeria. The video is a collection of such performances from the region, either as an anthem or a pop-song, instances of which having been uploaded to YouTube. The work is a display of the diversity surrounding a national anthem and hence conceptions of nationhood and homeland: from army choirs to pop-singers, from simple home-recordings to street performances by refugees, and from television shows to concerts.
Anne Low: A Wall Becomes a Table with Candlestick Legs
June 20–September 23, 2018
Anne Low’s presentation contains among other things hundred year-old worker’s clothes, well-preserved folk costumes from the local district of Sorunda, hand-printed wallpaper, and tables that have been modelled after the shapes of the walls found in the proletarian author Moa Martinson’s (1890–1964) cottage in nearby Ösmo. Anne Low combines all these elements in a captivating installation with the title, A Wall Becomes a Table with Candlestick Legs, that links together the past, the present and the future. Based in Vancouver, Anne Low’s sculptures and installations are inspired by old handicraft traditions that many visitors will recognise. At the same time the work is not bound to particular historical periods but deal with contemporary subjects such as housework, the decorative, utility and taste. As part of Sites of the Future, a collaboration with the Stockholm County Museum and The National Organisation of the People’s houses and Parks.
Tensta Museum opens a branch at ArkDes
June 1, 2018–January 20, 2019
Furthermore, Tensta Museum is opening a branch at ArkDes, as part of the exhibition Public Luxury. Since 2013, Tensta Museum has appeared in different guises, in Tensta, the city centre of Stockholm (with branches at the Medieval Museum, Stockholm, Stockholm’s City Museum in 2014) and beyond (mini-exhibitions in Riga and Zagreb). From April to December 2018, Tensta Museum will continue looking at history and memory in Tensta, through people who live and work there, and through the location and its many historical layers, with ArkDes as its base. In the form of a transforming mini-exhibition, with artworks by Lili Reynaud Dewar, Ylva Westerlund and Magnus Bärtås to be shown, as well as material from the archive of Spånga Local Heritage Association, textile crafts from Tensta konsthall’s Women’s Café, a soundtrack by Adam Tensta and more.
