Behind decoration - an alternative project report

1.

I am looking at Reza Hazare

he places a banana

then

the orange

between two planks

tightens the screws

until the fruits burst open

under the pressure

I am looking at Vanja Sandell Billström

she is standing in a doorway

building a wall

of cuddly toys

the wall falls

and she rebuilds it

until she disappears

behind it

Winzip senses

I don’t take the ferry to Latvia

and walk to the Riga Bourse

I am looking at a photograph

I am looking at Alexey Murashko

I am looking at Ieva Balode

They are standing next to a display case

filled with porcelain figures

One of the figures is extending its hand

She is leaning forward

looking at her reflection

I am not looking at Claire Holt

or Ana Mendes

or Andrejs Strokins

or Minna Henriksson

or Yan Xing

or Tanel Rander

or Ho Tzu Nyen

or Ēriks Apaļais

or Asnate Bockis

or how the hands move over the site

calling it to account

ready or adapted work

a new research-based work

archival display

a critical dictionary

works on the general display

intervention

work

I am not looking at Hala Alnaji

I am not looking at Valeria Montte Colque

I enter their forest

stand Under skogens himmel

I’m thinking of the grove behind the high-rise building

the grass without roots

the shadows

I am not looking at Agnieszka Wołodźko

I am waiting for Paolo Dall'Oglio’s

return

from the monastery in the mountain

I am looking at Ibrahim Mouhanna

behind the camera

white faces

take me to St John’s Centre

2.

3.

Shared History addresses how established and recently arrived artists based in Sweden, Poland and Latvia can explore community, migration and place together and thus create shared stories. However, who is “recently arrived” or “established”? Where and according to whom? Arriving entails a loss of language, tradition and knowledge. That which was valid there is not valid here. The migrant should be integrated and learn the codes of their new environment. At the same time, there is an idea that those who are already here do not have an experience of a there, which is part of the myth that Sweden has not had to endure war, even though there are people in this country who have experienced it. Shared History is described as a reaction towards contemporary nationalistic tendencies and the idea of a homogenous Europe in which the artistic work is informed by creating works and stories in which various experiences of flight and migration renegotiate both one’s own and the national self-image. The artistic works thus seem to respond to the question of what happens when these stories are brought together and on which terms they can become something shared when the conditions for being considered an artist are different.

In parallel with the artistic work, an introspective thought process was carried out, involving experts who were invited to think critically about the project, including, among others, Isabel Mager and Gabriel Maher who deconstructed the linguistic as well as the formal aspects of the application submitted to Creative Europe. Navigating the website I discover a number of questions that led to the project: “Why do we use the language we do?” “How are bureaucracy, cultural policy and the prevailing culture linked?” Cultural projects are often funded by applying to government agencies for grants, which directly relates the artistic work to the kind of language that is possible to use in order to make oneself understood and obtain a grant. The manner of phrasing which problems and aspects of society that are important for culture may entail adapting not only language but also the actual work. When I read that Shared History is financed by the European Union while the project’s main issues deal with migration and collective stories, I imagine that there is a problem in the fact that the agency one is criticising is the very same that enables the critique. Europe’s border policy is violent and very much focused on maintaining economic, cultural and politic power, which is in conflict with the aim of Shared History. What are the effects on art if it speaks the language of power, and what room for manoeuvre is there for not doing so? Is it possible to construct Trojan horses that destroy from the inside? Needless to say, there are limits to what one can say, and thus, for what type of projects one can realise. Artistic projects with the express ambition of addressing political issues thus risk having to subordinate themselves to pre-determined directives and goals. At best, art is still able to criticise the prevailing order and work from a desire to push the boundaries for that which is possible to say and do in a time of fascism. In the worst case, art becomes a decorated screen behind which violence continues.

Burcu Sahin (born 1993) lives Stockholm, works as a poet and teaches writing at the school Biskops Arnö.