What’s at Stake
September 23–November 27, 2022
Malmö 211 53
Sweden
Hours: Thursday–Friday 12–6pm
Saturday–Sunday 12–4pm
Gambling, the gaming industry, creative industries and the quest for constant profit maximisation. The venerable Bilden cultural quarter, where Signal is located, is undergoing a major renovation and while we are in a temporary space we reflect on the ongoing Massive-isation of our neighbourhood and on what spaces are left for artistic and cultural creation in the city. For this we have invited the artists Elin Alvemark and Jennifer Spångerud to think with us.
What’s at Stake is an exhibition that has emerged in dialogue with the forces of time that surround us. Through a collaborative working process that draws on questions of probability and has been inspired by simple inventions that create expectation, Alvemark and Spångerud blend sculptural materials with archaic forms. Here, the urn, the clock and the wheel of fortune become supporting symbols to respond to the ancient mechanisms where time and chance are equally decisive in the game of power, politics and economic gain. The mechanical grasping claw, however, never manages to grasp the delicate elements, the grains of gold that are crucial to a dynamic cityscape. It is simply the wrong tool for the job. How do we determine if the pieces of what we are building are falling apart? Or whether a truth today is still valid tomorrow?
The challenge is not how we change the city going forward, but rather how we can safeguard the specific attributes that collectively make up the soul of the city. With so many unfortunate facts in the name of urban development, the game of urban space seems to be stuck in a loop that won’t break. “Why?” is the perennial question.
November 7, 6pm
Maybe I'm not the person that I never wanted to be (revised edition, 2022. Malmö mix)—A radio drama by Thomas Boutoux and Teddy Coste
