IntraGalactic arts collective is an artist run initiative with a main focus on creating platforms and situations for artists to engage in peer-to-peer exchange. In artist’s research emphasis is put on process and the un-finished premiering dialogue and shared reflection. Performance plays a key role in our practice and we focus on presence in space, on the here and now, and on activation of space and place. In both research and public practice we aim to scrutinise structural organisation to bring visibility to the overlooked and that made invisible.

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WE

CONTEXT

‘Lokala konstprojekt’ is a part of the Public Art Agency Sweden’s ‘Knowledge hub public art’ which is a government assignment to inspire and strengthen the development of public art in all of Sweden. One important aspect is to keep the dialogue on the role of public art alive. We lift important knowledge that exists around the country and establish new knowledge where there are gaps. ‘Knowledge hub public art’ is a platform for meetings, experiences and information. It presents an opportunity to both give and receive knowledge in numerous areas and professions.
With 300 applicants 12 projects were awarded the commission. The call was open to non-profit art initiatives; non-commercial kunsthalles, artists, independent curators, interested in engaging in locally anchored projects.
The call was tentative into what happens when artists creatively chooses a place, puts relevant questions and explore aspects of public space as they themselves set the framework for their projects and the treatment and interpretation of our living spaces. One conclusion is that there is a need for long term public support for not-for-profit initiated art in shared living spaces. A model of funding which is not tied to development of public buildings would open up to art happening in places that would otherwise be without and also open up towards a wider view onto what public art can be.

PROJECT

The County of Jämtland-Härjedalen is unique in Sweden, both by its vast geographical area and that there is only one town in the entire region. The town Östersund is situated in the geographical centre of the county which makes the towns coach travel centre the centre point from which public transport and communication emanates. The location can be thought of as the heart of the county.

The travel centre is part a place where travellers pass through, part a place for drugs, sex work but also a warm place for those who lack a home. There are numerous security guards patrolling the space but it is a location that is experienced as unsafe, especially amongst younger travelers. In rural parts public transport fills a crucial function and travelers present a socio economical cross section where layers and nuances of society become visible. Youngsters, children, women and migrants populate the coaches. White men take the car.

We embraced the abilities of the medium of performance to directly address and work with presence in the space, in the here and now and the encounter of person to person (inter-personal encounters). Applying the image of the body we pictured the coach travel service Länstrafiken in the county of Jämtland-Härjedalen as the blood vessels and Östersund, the only town in the region and its square Busstorget, the heart where movement passes through or briefly stops by. People have the right to feel safe and seen, and this project activates a place that has become invisible. Through activation of the space the feeling of ownership and communality can be promoted and the people that inhabit the place experience this sense of activation in a change of perception. When visual art performance meets the place and its people, the place is activated, memories created and an archive of experiences of art interventions gets stored in people's bodies. Using performance is a means, in part to challenge the object hegemony of art history, and in part to meet the relocation of resources necessary within art practice to meet the demands of climate crisis.

IntraGalactic arts collective work with performance as process and setting up a research process with the coach travel centre and the county coaches we wanted to include a participant perspective. We looked into the social situation and people’s relationship to a place defined by its ephemerality. If we consider the travel centre the heart of the county and the coach lines a mycelium tying the rural to its center, it is the people that give life to these places. Working as an artist run initiative we wanted to bring forth alternative voices and it this way contribute to a democratisation of public space. We applied listening and to re-learning as methods to deconstruct power relations and scrutinise terms, conditions and established agreements of the place. We use the tools of intersectionality to locate what falls into the gaps or does not fit the frame. What is it that we are not seeing and how can we work with that? It was important to facilitate a situation where visual artists working with performance could explore public spaces and through activities on site share knowledge and ideas.

IntraGalactic arts collective is self-initiated arts collective run by artists. For us the self-organised is a means to create platforms and arenas for knowledge exchange between artists and a way to create contexts on terms set by us. In our ‘Lokala konstprojekt’ we invited an artist research group consisting of artists Malin Ståhl, Hiroko Tsuchimoto and Anita Wernström. The artists worked in collective research processes as well as individual artistic treatments of the place, its system and structures. In the artist group we brought together local connection as well as perspectives and contexts from other locations and situations. To facilitate a collective research process reaching over several years the project has been organised around research weeks where the artists have worked on site on sharing questions on processes of society, the slow violence of these processes, the mobile place and the time perspective of a place. In between research weeks the artists have written letters to each other and meet regularly once a month on skype.

In our working process we have strived to take in and to be with the places we have been working on and the perspective we have aimed for is that of the citizen. We see this as essentially different from the idea of the artist group that comes in and takes over a place. To us the co-existence between people, the place, and its questions is a process without end. Region Jämtland-Härjedalen consists of ten councils and of which six are Sámi administrative councils. Therefore a sámi perspective, or presence, has been necessary in our project which amongst other skills language worker Patricia Fjellgren and the artist Tomas Colbengtsson has contributed to.

Our work in ‘Lokala konstprojekt’ has for us been a process through which we have deepened and developed methods for talking about the role and possibilities of art. Our artist perspective has an attitude of life long learning, a continual analysis of our societal environment, which creates a place for inclusion, visualisation and enabling. From time to time we have asked ourselves; ‘what happened now?’ as a clear means to identify when new knowledge arises. The question ‘what happened now’ is followed by the question ‘what do we do now?’ striving to work with the new knowledge and to understand where things pinches, or tickles, and how we can work with that. We try to sit in the uncomfortable, to be uncomfortable and take responsibility in that. Everything is built by structures, power and hierarchies - which is why we constantly seek an intersectional perspective to shine a light at things which disappear, are made invisible, become invisible, fall into the gaps. By working in collective processes we can support each other.

IntraGalactic arts collective works with the method of inviting competence. This means that we invite an artist's practice and give the artist mandate to expand their work. Rather than asking for a ‘signum’ we ask the artist, the journalist, the curator, and so on, to delve into that which they themselves are interested in exploring. The intention is to give the person the authority of their own voice and art practice. It is a way of opening to artistic focus where new knowledge can be found through a freedom seldom offered.
For us it has not been important to find ‘key players’ to work with, what makes a difference to us is how we work. Also we don’t say that the audience is in focus. What matters is that contemporary art is brought to the place and that people can experience this art. This is a democratic right. To us contemporary art is a way of acting to find new possibilities to live, think and to formulate. The result, is the art.