Nordic Focus: Sweden

videoart by Dan Lestander (Sweden)

Nordic Focus: Sweden
Compilation curated by
Jonas Nilsson http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=2774
&
Eva Olsson http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=3222

presented on 18 March 2011 at Kharkiv City Art Gallery (Ukraine)


CologneOFF2011_press_release
CologneOFF 2011 UKRAINE
14-20 March 2011 – Kiev-Kharkiv

Curatorial statement:
art:screen’s curated programme consists of video works by Swedish artists or artists living in Sweden.
art:screen is an event and platform that showcases new, innovative and contemporary moving image from Swedish and international artists in single-channel screening programmes consisting of a number of short works.
art:screen started 2005 under the name Art Video Screening which changed to art:screen in December 2010. Art Video Screening was the initiator and head co-ordinator of Örebro International Videoart Festival 2008 and 2010 in co-operation with the art institutions in Örebro. From 2012 art:screen will be the head co-ordinator for art:screen fest, a festival where the main concept is to invite curators from around the world to curate screening programmes, and to be an international plattform for networking and co-operation possibilities between curators.
art:screen is co-operating with international video festivals and art organizers where art:screen is invited to curate screening programmes. art:screen is also offering screening programmes to Swedish art institutions and art associations that wants to broaden their art activities, but doesn’t have access to or possesses video works.

Artists:
1.
Name: Lestander
First name: Dan
Title of work/year/duration:
Dreams and Wishes, 2009, 4:19 min.

Short synopsis:
For me the ice is beautiful, where it lies as a membrane between the sky and the sea. The ice reminds me, with its clear involvement in metamorphosis, about life and the constant change that everything is going through. The opening, that a hole in the ice constitutes, provides an
opportunity to enter into, or up, to another element. My idea is to utilize the source of this specific space and challenge the expiriense of being human.

2.
Name: Bruun-Nystedt
First name: Elin

Title of work/year/duration:
Frasse and I, 2009, 2:05 min.
Short synopsis:
A short documentary on my ambivalent feelings when going to hamburger restaurants.

3.
Name: Gustavsson
First name: Evelina

Title of work/year/duration:
Mor & dotter (Mother & daughter), 2004, 2:42 min.
Short synopsis:
In Evelina Gustavsson’s film she explores the relationship between mother and daughter – a relationship that can be full of joy but also filled with sorrow and anger. In her work she’s looking for boundaries: how far you can go, how to behave and not to behave and when the line of what is acceptable or not has been croosed. Perhaps there are no limits to what’s
acceptable in such a relationship.#

4.
Name: QNQ/AUJIK

Title of work/year/duration:
A Forest within a Forest, 2010, 5:09 min.
Credits: Music: Mira Calix – Hiccup.
Short synopsis:
We follow Nashi through a journey in an uncanny forest and are introduced to some of her ideas about artificial selections. She states that everything is animated, even the things we consider synthetic and artificial are as sacred as plants and stones.
She criticizes the primitive nature for its inability to development and praises technology for its flexibility and proclaims that nature should adapt to technology in order to survive.

5.
Name: Lundberg
First name: Sara

Title of work/year/duration:
CORDS (hear us and have mercy), 2008, 3:14 min.
Short synopsis: non

6.
Name: Andersson
First name: Malin

Title of work/year/duration:
Cassock, 2009, 2:58 min.
Short synopsis:
Clothes is symbol of identity, structure and power. Through clothes we are given certain rolls and function, whether its a uniform or a certain style of fashion. The videoproject “cassocks” works with what is real and what is not in the eyes of the viewer. Is it a performance? Is she really a priest, or just an artist?

7.
Name: Olsson
First name: Eva

Title of work/year/duration:
The Labyrinth, 2009, 3:41 min.
Short synopsis:
Trapped in a world not of one’s making, in a life not of one’s design.

8.
Name: Perborg
First name: Björn

Title of work/year/duration:
The Trip To America, 2008-2009, 2:14 min.
Short synopsis:
Photografic images come into the field of vision with a typical mechanical “clack” of a slide projector. Soberly but with a touch of admiration, an off-camera voice explains what happened at the airport on the way from Copenhagen to America.
(A small package of laundry detergent, a three centimetre pocketknife and a book on Islam caused an uproar with the airport security personnel).

9.
Name: Härenstam
First name: Mattias

Title of work/year/duration:
Portrait of a smiling man, 2010, 4:30 min. no sound
Short synopsis:
An actor dressed in a dark suit and tie is sitting on a chair. He has been given the task of trying to smile as broad and long as possible. The entire session lasted almost twenty minutes, and over time the smile gradually disintegrates into a more and more grotesque grimace.

10.
Name: Lassila
First name: Nina

Title of work/year/duration:
Woman with knife, 2009, 1:49 min.
Short synopsis: non

11.
Name: Bergström Hansen
First name: Nicola

Title of work/year/duration:
Excavation No.2, 2009, 5:00 min.

Short synopsis:
In Excavation No.2 YouTube clips of men and women shooting into the forest are accompanied by sentences that change with every gunshot. The sentences are all written by John Muir; A romantic naturalist and the father of Yosemite national park. Muirs romantic view on nature contrasts the violent video clips but they both speak of our relationship to nature.
Excavation No.2 originates from a dusty shelf in the library as well as from the dynamic, and shifting archive of YouTube.

12.
Name: Sederowsky
First name: Dana

Title of work/year/duration:
Special announcements edition four, 2009, 1:35 min.
Short synopsis: non

13.
Name: Weberg
First name: Anders

Title of work/year/duration:
Undisclosed beauty, 2008, 3:13 min.
Short synopsis:
Just because You spit in my eyes does not mean that I have clear vision.

14.
Name: Nilsson
First name: Jonas
Title of work/year/duration:

The choice, 2009, 2:15 min.
Short synopsis:
We have become aware that in the great game that is being played, we are the players as well as being the cards, and the stakes… What disconcerts the modern world at its very root is not being sure… that there is an outcome, a suitable outcome to evolution.
The human being is supposedly the most intelligent being in existence, yetwe are also the most destructive, the most self-consumed, the greediest, etc. We have the ability to be the superior organism, but we have (as a whole) become the most inferior.

15.
Name: Savela
First name: Antti
Title of work/year/duration:

My Way, 2010, 4:50 min.
Short synopsis:
In this video I have brought together eight complete strangers to sing “My Way” by Jacques Revaux and Claude Francois.