| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-12-18T09:28:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2017-12-18T09:28:45Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2077/54723 | |
| dc.subject | curator | sv |
| dc.subject | exhibition led research | sv |
| dc.subject | posthumanism | sv |
| dc.subject | New Companionships | sv |
| dc.title | New Companionships | sv |
| dc.type.svep | artistic work | |
| dc.contributor.creator | Laurien, Thomas | |
| art.typeOfWork | Curatorial work including exhibition design and organization of artist talks. | sv |
| art.relation.publishedIn | Nov 20th-25th, 2017, Gothenburg Design Festival 2017 | sv |
| art.description.workIncluded | >>> The Exhibition, Monday-Saturday, Nov 20th-25th: The show contained work by eight HDK students and alumni: Sara Eva Samuelsson, Tina Lehnhardt, Kim Björnson, Karin Granlöf, Amanda Selinder, Anton Vikström, David Chocron, and Luca Mariotti. As part of the exhibition design the space also included room for a workshop and an area for talks. The exhibition space was designed using a modular display system by Markus Bergström as point of departure.
>>> The Opening Talk, Monday Nov 20th: Thomas Laurien, Christine Hansen, and Kajsa G Eriksson presented the students’ work briefly and then elaborated on some key concepts and approaches for a future free standing course at HDK. Following this, designer David Chocron contextualized his work Music For Plants and set it in a mingle version. After the mingle, the special guest Etienne Turpin invited the audience to reflect on his and Anna-Sophia Springer’s work Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg.
>>> The “What’s Natural?” Workshop, Thursday Nov 23rd: Initiated by Tom Cubbin, and conducted by Thomas Laurien. By positioning a variety of objects/matter on a natural/unnatural line in the exhibition space, the aim of the workshop was to reveal how we interpret the quality of “naturalness”.
>>> The Student Talk, Friday Nov 24th: Designer Alexander Beveridge moderated a talk with Luca Mariotti, Anton Vikström, Kim Björnson, and Karin Granlöf, where the exhibition participants shared experiences and reflections from their exhibited projects. Following this David Chocron contextualized his work Music For Plants. | sv |
| art.description.project | The original aim of the exhibition project New Companionships was to explore links between design/crafts/art pedagogy, and the newly established transdisciplinary and global research field Environmental Humanities – and show these links within the context of the inaugural Gothenburg Design Festival.
Early questions in the curatorial process were simply: Are there any student projects done recently at HDK that can be understood as artistic responses to issues that the Environmental Humanities deal with, e.g. climate change, deep time, green futures, and multispecies stories? Are there any students who intuitively or expressively employ and/or relate to post human concepts and perspectives in their work?
A scouting and selection process started where I ended up with eight fitting projects made by students from the design, crafts, and art teachers program. When I was convinced that the projects could form an interesting exhibition my focus moved to the planning of the exhibition program. At this point I decided to engage more people in the process. Together with Dr Kajsa G Eriksson, senior lecturer at the Art Teachers Program at HDK, and Dr Christine Hansen, coordinator at GUEHN Gothenburg University Environmental Humanities Network, I decided to organize an “Opening Talk + Guest”, and a “Student Talk”. The initial idea for the Opening talk came from the fact that the participating students unintentionally represented a variety of programs and levels. What if we instead – the idea then was –thought of the projects as the result of a specific course? What would that course be like? In the process of planning the opening talk about the speculative course we realized that we started to treat the course as something that we actually wanted to do. Lucky circumstances during the later stage in this process made us understand that there was a possibility for us to actually realize the idea about a course. This meant that we in the opening talk actually could present and highlight some important approaches and aspects for a near future practice based free standing course about post human perspectives and artistic practices. When the overall program for the Gothenburg Design Festival started to be finalized, I understood that my colleague, design historian Dr Tom Cubbin planned to conduct a workshop called “What’s Natural?”. I realized that this workshop had much in common with what I wanted to address and express with the exhibition. This led me to the idea to incorporate the workshop in the exhibition space, and to treat the workshop props as an exhibit. This take was in my view very successful, and is something that I would like to experiment with in future exhibitions. The same goes for the area in the exhibition space that was designed for the talks. Already in the initial spatial planning, what was needed for talks and presentations were taken into consideration. To incorporate a space within the exhibition that signals that people will meet has in my view a positive effect on the exhibition as a whole.
The result of the curatorial work with the exhibition New Companionships is twofold. On one hand an exhibition with a talks-and-workshop program. This result was expected and in my view successful. On the other hand the exhibition project has ignited the creation of a new network at HDK: The New Companionships Research Network. This result was more unexpected but is yet another example of how dynamic curatorial processes can create both new understandings and initiatives for further explorations. | sv |
| art.description.summary | The exhibition New Companionships was part of the 2017 Gothenburg Design Festival. The aim with the exhibition was to show and reflect on links between posthuman perspectives and artistic work. It contained projects by eight HDK students and alumni, as well as a talks-and-workshop program. | sv |
| art.description.supportedBy | GUEHN Gothenburg University Environmental Humanities Network | sv |
| art.relation.uri | https://2017.gothenburgdesignfestival.se/events/thomas-laurien/ | sv |
| art.relation.uri | https://2017.gothenburgdesignfestival.se/events/new-companionships-opening-talk/ | sv |
| art.relation.uri | https://2017.gothenburgdesignfestival.se/events/new-companionships-student-talk/ | sv |
| art.relation.uri | https://2017.gothenburgdesignfestival.se/events/new-companionships-seminar/ | sv |
