Project Me

I’m coming round to the idea that I won’t be in Sweden this summer. I’m making it okay by telling myself that I’ll be here lots of other summers.

Today I uploaded my application for a (the!) practice-based PhD that is being launched here. Yesterday I had a very good meeting with the research co-ordinator. It was an informal meeting to answer some questions I had about the structure of the application, I had been feeling very unconnected with the academic world but as it turns out I was on the right track. Meeting her was also very pertinent to my ‘dilemma’ (?) about whether I could really move to Sweden. She has recently returned after many years of living in the UK, it was interesting to hear her opinions and observations.

On the subject of moving to Sweden friends seem to be falling into two camps. This evening I’m with the ‘DO IT’ team. The thought of trying to manage a flat, or even find an agent I trust, and dealing with all the things that go with being an absentee landlord are far less attractive than thinking I could have enough money to rent a studio and not have to worry about paid employment for a few years …

Next week I’m in London for a wedding and to deliver work to a gallery for a show that opens in May. It will be good to see my friends, my flat and London again. I still have a lot to think about in the coming months.

I feel as though I’ve really been through the wringer this week.
One of my flatmates in London told me that he plans to move out at the end of May. Basically it means that I have to go back to London and find a new tenant. The news was like being hit with a massive lump of reality! I’ve been able to spend time in Stockholm because my house and mortgage was being taken care of. I rarely thought about what was happening in London and recently I’ve even allowed myself to think that I live in Stockholm now. Suddenly it felt like I was being pulled back – very much against my will!

A good friend here pointed out how my reaction to the news (feeling physically sick and unable to sleep for three days) could be an indication of where I really want to be. To be honest I’ve been avoiding the reality of my situation, and now I’m going to have to face up to it.

In one way the current situation is making think about where I want to be in the future and it’s made me realise that I really don’t have the resources to live in two countries.

I was looking forward to summer here, now it looks like I’ll be in London sorting out my flat and working to cover the short fall in rent. I hope that I can find someone I already know to take the room – I don’t like the idea of letting to a stranger and then leaving the country! It also feels very unfair to my other flatmate who’s been a wonderful tenant for nearly six years.

All this happened at the same time as I’m working on an application to study here!

Suddenly I have a lot of thinking to do …

The weeks are passing so quickly. It feels very late to mention the snow sculpture workshop again but I just want to say that the two days out on the field were great. The weather was perfect – cold and sunny – the children were great, and I had a great time too. The whole thing reminded me just how enjoyable this kind of event can be, it reminded me why I got involved in education and children’s projects in the first place.
Birgitta did a wonderful job organising everything, I would never have guessed it the first time she’s done it. She designed, managed and promoted the event, raised money for it, employed three artists, recruited volunteers from the Årstafältet Nättverk, she also organised hot food and drinks for everyone, got a cinema ticket and made a ‘Snöstjänor’ [Snow Star] ‘diploma’ for each participant, and commissioned Irina to make a trophy for the sculpture that won the most votes. Did I mention that she also provided simultaneous translations when I spoke!
And again I was very impressed with the children, and how they worked together and behaved.
And I was really impressed with the sculptures they made!
Saturday was a little chaotic because the public were invited to come along too and they arrived before we set up! Some of the children came with their parents and other siblings, all of who joined in too.
I’m very pleased to say that the public vote for the ‘best’ sculpture was a tie so the trophy was awarded jointly to two schools. (I also very pleased that one of the winning teams was one I worked with!) I found it very interesting that although there was a competition (and some of the children really got involved in campaigning for their sculpture,) it was a good natured kind of competition.

As I don’t have a studio at the moment I’ve decided that I will go to at least one art event during the ‘working week’ – this an extra thing and in addition to visiting galleries. Last night I went to the launch of a new exhibit in the ‘Studio’ programme at Moderna Museet. It’s a curatorial project by students on the curating course at Konstfack. It was very ‘curatorial’! I met up with Karen and Hans (Karen’s husband) who were very good at introducing me to their artist and curator friends. In another example of my ever-shrinking world it turns that Hans knows my former Swedish teacher in London. They worked for the same translation office many years ago! One day I’m going to draw a diagram of all these Swedish connections … I’m fascinated by how coincidental they all are …

Last week I heard about some new studios near to Färgfabriken (an independent contemporary art space) in a very post-industrial part of town. I want to go and check them out. When I heard there were whole floors being let out I started having fantasies about having a real live/work studio. Apparently live/work doesn’t happen here – maybe I should start it ….

Snöstjärnor

This time last week I was out in a field helping children snow sculpt. It was a brilliant few days, and by the look of the weather it happened just in time!

Now that it’s done it’s amazing to think that it was over six months ago that Birgitta first mentioned her idea for the project. We had only just met in the kitchen at wip and were chatting about how we survive as artists. The conversation turned to children’s projects and Birgitta talked about her ambitions for a snow festival on Årstafältet (a common that she is involved in trying to protect from development).

It was the first children’s project I’ve worked on in a couple of years, and the first one I’ve done outside of the UK. In many ways it wasn’t that different from other ones I’ve done, and yet in other ways it was so different! I can’t quite put my finger on what made it different, perhaps it was just that I (literally) didn’t understand much of what was being said. One thing I noticed was the way the children worked, they were much more focussed and calmer than the London children I’m used to working with. They were also much better at cooperating and sharing the tools.
Speaking of tools, I was a little nervous when I saw the tools that we would be working with – it’s not that they were particularly dangerous, but they had the potential to be – it made me realise that it’s not the tools that are the challenge but the children’s way of handling them. Over the two days we were working with saws, trowels, files, rasps and even axes I didn’t see one incident of a tool being used in a threatening or violent way – something that I’ve (unfortunately) learnt to expect.

From the moment I arrived at the school, where we met all the children and designed the sculptures, I was aware of how different things are here. The school grounds and building were open, I walked across an open area to the class we were borrowing for the day, opened the door and let myself in. There were a few children hanging around in classrooms and others making themselves sandwiches in the kitchen area along the corridor (it was ‘sports week’ which is like half term so there weren’t proper lessons but the school is open for children whose parents work). I’m not used to such openess

Susanne, Birgitta’s old college friend who is an experienced snow sculptor, showed examples of the projects she’s done where she lives in Kiruna (up in northern Sweden were it can be -30 in the winter) and handed around the tools we would be using. Then Irina presented the ‘inspiration’ slide show that we put together.
The children came up with great designs for their snow sculptures. They were good at working in their teams and deciding on the one design they would actually make. After badly cutting herself while trying to carve plaster Birgitta discovered that florist’s Oasis foam is a great way to make a macquete. By the end of the afternoon the children had all carved their own versions of their group sculptures and the room was covered in a fine green dust!

The weather the next day was fantastic – brilliant blue sky, sunny and about minus five – perfect for being outside and working with snow. Birgitta and Henrik (a fellow field campaigner) had already prepared the blocks of snow the children would work on. I had no idea that there are special forms/frames that you need to use to make the blocks – to be honest I hadn’t really thought about how to get the snow ‘together’ at all! Susanne explained that you never quite know what the snow will be like when you unpack it, and that that’s part of the excitement, but it can also effect what you can do with it. There had been a couple of mild days since the snow had been packed into the forms but thankfully the forms came off easily and blocks looked good – I took Susanne’s word for this ….

Supermarket 2010 and other stuff

I have lost all sense of time. On one hand it feels like an age since last year’s art fairs, and on the other hand it feels like no time at all.

For me this was a very different fair weekend to last year. For a start this year I have a relationship with the Stockholm art world that I didn’t have this time last year. I know some artists to say hello to, and some to actually talk with. I’m much more familiar with the Stockholm galleries. And though I find it difficult to admit (why?) I’m living here at the moment.

On Sunday morning I was on the wip:sthlm stand at Supermarket for a few hours. Everyone who was showing was on a rota so there were always four people on the stand and I was more than happy to do my share – it was a great way to meet some of the other wip artists as well as meeting people who came to the stand. I’d also been on the stand for the ‘press preview’ on Thursday, and spent most of Friday at Supermarket (but not on the wip stand). Sunday was good, it was interesting to meet people who go to a fair like Supermarket. Most of them were other artists, some were curators. Very few seemed to be collectors (though I guess that a lot of artists are also collectors – it’s just that we’re more likely to swap work). Supermarket is great at giving artists opportunities to meet other artists and artist-led organisations, it’s a far cry from the ubber-slick and commercial Market fair.

I enjoyed Market too Рfor very different reasons. I like a lot of Scandinavian art, and there was a lot of it to see. Most of the contemporary commercial galleries from Stockholm were there, along with ones from Malm̦ and G̦teborg. Also ones from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Germany.

What I really appreciate is that the two fairs are proudly different from each other. And they do it without being competitive (well at least not that I noticed). They know they do different things and that they are both important. For me it sums up a lot of what I like about Sweden – that difference is just about difference and not about one thing being better or worse then another. It’s wonderful to be somewhere where there is considerably less call for value judgements.

It was lovely to catch up with Alan and Clare who run Sevenseven Contemporary Art (London), and to meet their children Lydia and Stella too. I met Alan when I had a studio in the east-end and I was in a group shows he organised at Mile End Art Pavilion about six years ago. Dawn (another Bow artist) came too, and I got quite nostalgic about the crowd I used to know about 10 years ago. I lost touch with most of them when I moved to south London. It was ridiculous to keep the studio when I lived so far away – though I tried for a year. In some ways it was great to just pick up where we left off, and in another it made me wonder how it was so easy to lose contact with people. Both Dawn’s and Alan’s work has changed hugely (as has mine) and it was wonderful to see what they are up to – I like what they’re doing.

This afternoon I started working out how to apply to the royal college here for their professional artists’ scheme. The scheme gives artists time in technical workshops and access to their facilities. It’s a bit like the AA2A (Artists Access to Art Colleges) scheme in the UK. I was very pleased to find pictures of very old work on my computer – I want to include some examples of my more sculptural work, especially my ability to cast. I’m applying to work in the sculpture department and my proposed project involves pushing what can be done with some casting processes and working with wax.

This time next week I’ll be preparing for my first Swedish children’s art workshop … snow sculpture …

www.sevenseven.org.uk

www.arstafaltet.se

www.supermarketartfair.com

www.market-art.se