Suddenly things are a lot calmer. Catching up on unread emails from Thursday evening and Friday I learn that my show in Uppsala is postponed. It should have opened on 16 January but Swedish regulations regarding covid-19 restrictions were strengthened on Friday and with immediate effect national, regional, and local public buildings are now closed until at least 24 January. Though the Artists’ Club gallery is not strictly such a venue, as we are a professional association, we are funded up the regional and local council therefore follow their advice.
With Christmas immanent and a minimum of a five week suspension of activities we on the management committee have taken the decision not to make any new plans until early in the new year.
We’re not quite in a lockdown here so I can still go to the studio on what Swedes call ’the between days’ (mellandagarna). I am looking forward to being there with a healthy chunk of Christmas cake and a good cup of tea! I am still working on getting the recipe right for the Mongolian paper maché that I want to use for a couple of pieces – too much potato starch in the first batch.
I was busy in Uppsala most of Friday. Some of the LGBTQ+ youth group, their group leaders, and I recorded a short film presenting selected artworks from Under the Same Rainbow. With museum’s closure also being extended the film is a way for people to see a little of what is on show and to hear our very personal interpretations and responses. There is still the chance that the full show will be open to the public from late January to late February. Though it must be said there is also the chance that the show will never be seen in its entirety – which is very sad. The exhibition opened with a live-streamed vernissage, if it closes (in real life) there will be a grand finishage!
Working with the teams in Uppsala has been great. I had met most of them earlier either through my work for council here in Enköping, one of the committees that I sit on, or even when I showed in the Art Cube (which was nearly two years ago now), but it’s been rather different to have worked with them over last six months. In some ways it is unfair to compare it to my work here for a small semi-rural council, on the other hand it is interesting to see what can be achieved in a more culturally engaged (and engaging) situation. I hope that it is the first of many similar projects, and first of many freelance possibilities for me.
The new covid-19 restrictions mean that I start working from home tomorrow. I am really not sure how I feel about that. It is of course the sensible thing to do, but I do like to keep my ’bread job’, even though it is in the arts, separate from my private life and my own practice. I might have to find somewhere else to have my job-computer, this desk is part of my work and my practice, and I do not want to muddle that with my paid employment.
