Landscapes shaped by cultural shifts – upcoming exhibitions at Marabouparken konsthall

Marabouparken konsthall 13 May–16 August 2015

Participant Observers
Marabouparken Lab
Henrik Andersson

Nothin’ Shakin’ but the Leaves on the Trees
Edward Clydesdale Thomson

Press preview: Tuesday May 12 at 10am
Opening: Tuesday May 12 at 5–8pm

For further information and press images please contact:
Niki Kralli, Communications manager at Marabouparken konsthall, niki.kralli@marabouparken.se

Landscapes shaped by cultural shifts

This summer Marabouparken konsthall will show two separate exhibitions that examine landscapes shaped by cultural shifts. Artist Henrik Andersson actualises the Swedish Defence Research Agency placement in Sundbyberg and its connection to Sweden’s post-war period. Edward Clydesdale Thomson pays special attention to the feelings and values projected on the land that surrounds us, and how evocations of landscape can be used to express our innermost feelings.

Participant Observers

In the exhibition, Henrik Andersson completes his investigation of an area in Ursvik in northern Sundbyberg where the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), was located until 2005. Using material from, among others, the FOI art collection, the photographic collection of the Museum of Sundbyberg and the archive of the Public Art Agency Sweden, Henrik Andersson traces changes in physical as well as mental landscapes. In these times when armed conflicts seem to creep ever closer, Henrik Andersson brings to the fore FOI’s placement in Sundbyberg, its connection to the period after the Second World War and its changing social climate. In the wake of the activities of FOI, we discover art, protocols, photographs and inventories that raise the question what role art and artists have played in the Swedish national defence.

“The area contained shooting ranges, administration offices and depots, and, most importantly, high level research was conducted there. The research included everything from the development of Swedish nuclear weapons to medical research into surgical methods of treating crush injuries. The activities were top secret and what really went on behind the fence remains shrouded in mystery. In the early 1960s, public support for the Swedish nuclear programme waned and in 1961 the first protest march against the atomic bomb in Sweden went to Ursvik. The Swedish Defence premises in Ursvik also housed something else, an art collection, which was primarily acquired by the Public Art Agency Sweden. An art collection at a secret location – what was it doing there?” – Henrik Andersson

The exhibition Participant Observers is a part of Henrik Andersson’s Marabouparken Lab project. These serve as local collaborative projects that link artists, local actors and common spaces in Sundbyberg with the aim of enhancing our collective memory connected to sites, and hopefully, at the same time, making the current societal development emerge in a clearer light.

Nothin’ Shakin’ but the Leaves on the Trees

For Edward Clydesdale Thomson, an artist who often works on the margins between inside and outside, a gallery space surrounded by a park creates a fertile context. At Marabouparken konsthall one group of works presented indoors act as a precursor for a new work outdoors, five sculptures commissioned specially for Marabouparken.

Thomson pays special attention to the feelings and values we lay upon the land that surrounds us and conversely, how evocations of landscape can be used to express our innermost feelings, as in the 1950s love song that gives the exhibition its title Nothin’ Shakin’ but the Leaves on the Trees.

By combining the works titled The Distracted Gardener & The Plumbing Subverter (2013), causa finalis (2012) and In A Green Shade (2011), the artist has transformed the gallery into a metaphorical space of everyday objects, images and forms that exist on the edge between interior and exterior. This means moving about in a mental landscape that involves memory and emotions.

On the large grass lawn of Marabouparken five sculptures bear references of historical forest use and the industrial-scale growing of spruces. Thomson’s sculptures speak of the different roles the trees in the forests have played in Swedish culture as timber, capital and cultural environment. This work, commissioned for Marabouparken, is also reflection on the nature of the park itself. Marabouparken was laid out to give the illusion of a naturally emerged oasis – a place for physical and spiritual recreation that would also create a strong sense of connection to the company and thus further loyalty and productivity. This is where the ideology about Marabouparken and the Swedish forest start to overlap – as models of belief and productivity.

“The narrative of forestry use in Sweden can be read in spiritual, economic and moral terms that define the complex politics of our relation to land use. Notions of identity and the modernistic ideals of productivity produce a responsibility for ‘nature’ that pairs morality and capitalist ideals.” – Edward Clydesdale Thomson

The exhibition Nothin' Shakin' but the Leaves on the Trees was made possible by financial support from the Mondriaan Fund and Stichting Stokroos.

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Henrik Andersson (born 1973 in Gothenburg) is based in Stockholm and studied Fine Art and Curating at Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. He has exhibited at, among others, Moderna Museet, Index and the Tirana Biennial in Albania. From 2013–2014 he worked with Asger Jorn’s photographic archive in the project Museum Jorn that was exhibited at the Baltic Art Center in Visby. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Paletten and has previously worked as a curator at Röda Sten Konsthall and taught at the School of Photography in Gothenburg.

henrikanderssonart.tumblr.com

Edward Clydesdale Thomson (b. 1982, Scottish/Danish artist based in Rotterdam) is a graduate of the MFA program at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam and the BArch program at the Glasgow School of Art. He has been resident artist at Iaspis, Stockholm, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Notable recent exhibitions include: 25 jaar Stadscollectie Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2013), The Distracted Gardener & The Plumbing Subverter, Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2013), causa finalis, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2012), Secret Gardens, TENT, Rotterdam (2012), Prix de Rome 2011, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam (2011).

http://www.edwardthomson.net/