Cloud Studies
Forensic Architecture 7.10 2022 - 8.1 2023

Saturday 12.11 2022
An afternoon with reflections from the Women’s Archives in Istanbul

Fall break course with Beckman School of Design
31.10 - 4.11 2022

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Reflections from the Women’s Archives in Istanbul

12.11 2022 13.00-15.00 An afternoon with reflections from the Women’s Archives in Istanbul

Language: English

Artists: Larissa Araz and Petra Bauer, Şafak Şule Kemancı and Ays Alayat, Özge Açıkkol and Elin Strand Ruin

Reflections from the Women’s Archives brings together works by artists based in Turkey and Sweden, and is the culmination of a period of artistic research, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaboration which has the archives of the Women’s Library in Istanbul at its epicenter.

Six artists, three based in Sweden and three in Turkey, were invited to a research residency at the Women’s Library, taking on the often difficult task of engaging with an archive as artists. The artists worked in pairs to develop the works in the exhibition, following an intensive period of research and discussion focusing on the history of the women’s movement in Turkey, curatorial research practices and the organization and contents of the archive itself. The resulting exhibition presented three new installations, where affinities amongst the images, letters, and newspaper clippings housed in the archive as well as the spaces and communities that surround its building are brought together. The artists address the people whose stories they encountered within and around the archive, corresponding with the past in matters of what and who survives it, and whose reflections can or cannot be derived from it.

During the event the organizers of the exhibition, Mike Bode* the counsellor of Cultural Affairs in Consulate General of Sweden, Istanbul, Asena Günal* Director of Depo Istanbul, and Füsun Ertuğ* co-founder of The Women’s Library and Information Center, will present the project and the Women’s library. Afterward the artists will talk about their research period and present their outcomes in performance and lecture formats. After the event you are invited to share food with the participants.

*present via link

The event is organized in cooperation with The Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, The Women’s Library and

Information Center Foundation, DEPO in Istanbul and the Swedish Institute.

Welcome!

Image: Şafak Şule Kemancı & Ays Alayat, “Gerçekten Yalnız mıyım?”, Installation detail, 2022 (Photo: Kayhan Kaygusuz)

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12.11 2022 13.00-15.00 An afternoon with reflections from the Women’s Archives in Istanbul

Language: English

Artists: Larissa Araz and Petra Bauer, Şafak Şule Kemancı and Ays Alayat, Özge Açıkkol and Elin Strand Ruin

Reflections from the Women’s Archives brings together works by artists based in Turkey and Sweden, and is the culmination of a period of artistic research, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaboration which has the archives of the Women’s Library in Istanbul at its epicenter.

more →

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Fall break course with Beckman School of Design

31.10 - 4.11 2022 Fall break camp with Beckman School of Design

With the upcoming exhibition Cloud Studies as a starting point, the alumni Johanna Burai and Kimberly Ihre will present an exciting and rich program for young people 16 - 25 interested in design. Focus is the topic visual communication and the participants will get to learn the basics in professional concept idea processes within the business. Registration and inquiries, please email George Chamoun, art mediator.

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Cloud Studies

7.10 2022 - 8.1 2023 Cloud Studies

Cloud Studies (new version, 2022), video ca 30 min, presented with some of Forensic Architecture's previous investigations.

Evidence as art? It’s not an unreasonable idea considering the tradition of realism in art and the line of thinking that has tied visual evidence to truth throughout history. But examining situations and demonstrating sequences of events all the way through to the halls of justice is one of the more uncommon sights in the art world. Since 2011, Forensic Architecture has been developing methods to take over where the justice system falls short or fails the citizenry in its responsibility to assemble and analyze evidence in criminal investigations. For example, they collaborate with activists to gather data in the form of images, and they use various methods to prove where a person or an object was at a given point in time, or whether they have passed through one particular place or another. Here they rely on an architect’s tools, such as spatial visualizations and 3D renderings, to describe a sequence of events and to establish causality. They present timelines and reveal spatial relationships, and often they are able to bring into question official narratives around the nature and circumstances of a crime. Forensic Architecture work in partnership with institutions across civil society, from grassroot activists, to legal teams, to international NGOs and media organisations, to carry out investigations with and on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, police brutality, border regimes and environmental violence.

In the work Cloud Studies, which is presented in a new version for the first time and constitutes the main component of the exhibition at Tensta Konsthall, Forensic Architecture takes on the airspace around us and the clouds that form in our shared atmosphere, the basis for all life and for our survival. There are existential, poetic, and aesthetic dimensions to the phenomenon of clouds. Cirrus, cumulus, stratus, and cumulonimbus. Threatening storm clouds and rosy dawn clouds. As an artistic motif, the cloud is complex because it is a body with no bounds that is constantly in motion. Traditionally it was considered an impossible motif to paint, since the artist’s brush could not move quickly enough to capture the changing form and position of clouds, and thus they were seen as something imaginary that was hard to prove exactly when, where, and what they were at any given moment. But the global political dimensions overshadow the art historical digressions in Cloud Studies. Here the center stage is given to the clouds that humanity itself manufactures—a “toxic common.” These are cloud formations that contain poison or are full of cement, construction materials, fabrics, garbage, household items, and sometimes even the remains of human bodies that have been blown up into the air.

The camera pans inexorably back and forth over the earth, reading the signs in our shared atmosphere—from the airborne chemical warfare waged on farmers in Gaza, illegal logging in the Indonesian rainforest, and the bombing of Aleppo to the profuse usage of teargas in the streets of Hong Kong, in the suppression of Black Lives Matter demonstrators, or against protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, and culminating with the gigantic cloud that has come to symbolize the catastrophic explosion in Beirut Harbor that will impact that city’s residents for decades to come. Forensic Architecture’s many investigations of different crime scenes have been able to demonstrate structural oppression, the individual examples together describing how violence is wielded and who its victims are. Meanwhile, their working method makes clear the intensity with which contemporary culture is documented, how images are spread all over the planet, and how the ability to analyze large amounts of data is truly the tool of the future for exercising power. But it also challenges us to take action together: “We, the citizens of toxic clouds, must resist in common action.”

Forensic Architecture’s work has been celebrated in many of the great international art venues in recent years, and their piece 77sqm_9:26min was included in the group exhibition Soon Enough: Art in Action produced by Tensta Konsthall in 2018. They have also come to be known in Sweden through the 2020 exhibition Design as Investigation at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg.

We wish to offer our warmest thanks to the entire Forensic Architecture team for illuminating the complex sequence of events in their investigations, for giving individuals and groups justice by proving the improvable, bringing together resources, and using art as an arena in which to share their urgent narratives with the public.

Still from Cloud Studies

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7.10 2022 - 8.1 2023 Cloud Studies
Cloud Studies (new version, 2022), video ca 30 min, presented with some of Forensic Architecture's previous investigations.

Evidence as art? It’s not an unreasonable idea considering the tradition of realism in art and the line of thinking that has tied visual evidence to truth throughout history. But examining situations and demonstrating sequences of events all the way through to the halls of justice is one of the more uncommon sights in the art world. Since 2011, Forensic Architecture has been developing methods to take over where the justice system falls short or fails the citizenry in its responsibility to assemble and analyze evidence in criminal investigations.more →

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Sonic Insurrections with Nombuso Mathibela

26.3 2022 Sonic Insurrections with Nombuso Mathibela

Sonic Insurrections is a series of public gatherings that present sound and listening as sites of affect, memory, solidarity, pulse, rhythm and spirituality. We delve into sound for its history, situatedness and processes to map out an ‘otherwise’.

From the standpoint of thinking of ‘an otherwise’ we affirm attempts to undo the definition of heritage as “denoting or relating to special architectural, historical or natural values that are preserved for the nation.” With this definition, we come to notions of heritage as material, historical and as part of world-making and nation-building. However, nation-building is fraught with violence, war and anti-Blackness. If heritage is aligned with this context, what makes connection across borders possible? We do not have exact answers but we sense that music and sound perforate these demarcations allowing connectivity within Black communities and beyond.

Sonic Insurrections responds to Hurting and Healing in two iterations. The first takes place at Tensta konsthall and includes an onsite introduction by the curators of the series, Tawanda Appiah and Mmabatho Thobejane, and an online performative talk and vinyl set by Nombuso Mathibela. The second takes the form of a listening session at the Royal Institute of Art’s Listening Room. More information about this iteration will soon be released.

18:30 – 19:00 - Introduction: Tawanda Appiah and Mmabatho Thobejane

19:00 – 19:30 - Performative talk: “the personality of Black sonics” by Nombuso Mathibela

19:30 – 19:50 - Q&A

19:50 – 20:50 - Vinyl set + Listening Session by Nombuso Mathibela

Nombuso Mathibela is a South African cultural worker, writer, educator, sonic practitioner

and vinyl selector. She is the cultural political educator for the African Ecofeminist Collective

that works on anti-capitalist ecological justice, political art education and histories. Much of

her work aims to question and account for the cultural instincts that inform Black sonic

aesthetics through dance and performance and situates these forms within a collective

class consciousness ethic. Her sonic selections move against prescribed form, borders,

across seas, only for dancers, and sometimes a bit obsessed with the seventies but always

reflecting the soulful palettes of Black life.

Mmabatho Thobejane (she/her) is a curator, producer and writer currently based in Stockholm, Sweden. She graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BCom (Finance and Economics) in 2016 and a BA(Hons) in Curatorship in 2017. She received a Masters in Curating from Stockholm University in 2021. She currently splits her time between being the process leader and curator at Grafikens Hus, for the project Samlande Tankar/Collecting Thoughts, and as a producer at MDT, located at Skeppsholmen, Stockholm. Her curatorial practice focuses on centering Black creative practices and her writing practices centers and excavates Black Indigenous knowing, sense and unfolding.

Tawanda Appiah is a Zimbabwean independent curator, researcher and writer based in Malmö, Sweden. He is part of Njelele Art Station and previously worked as a co-curator at Skånes konstförening and Curator of Education & Public Programming at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. In 2021 he co-curated the GIBCA Extended exhibition – Comforting the machine. Other projects and interventions include No Country Like (Skånes konstförening, 2018); Better Safe and Sorry (Moderna Museet, 2018); On Practices (Malmö Konsthall and Skånes konstförening, 2019); To Where Are We Beautifully Going? (2020); in(visible) (Malmö Konstmuseum, 2021). Appiah sits on various boards including Paletten Art Journal.

The events are organized in collaboration with the Nordic Art Association

Image: Nombuso Mathibela, photographer: Andile Buka

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26.3 2022 Sonic Insurrections with Nombuso Mathibela

Sonic Insurrections is a series of public gatherings that present sound and listening as sites of affect, memory, solidarity, pulse, rhythm and spirituality. We delve into sound for its history, situatedness and processes to map out an ‘otherwise’.

From the standpoint of thinking of ‘an otherwise’ we affirm attempts to undo the definition of heritage as “denoting or relating to special architectural, historical or natural values that are preserved for the nation.” With this definition, we come to notions of heritage as material, historical and as part of world-making and nation-building. However, nation-building is fraught with violence, war and anti-Blackness. If heritage is aligned with this context, what makes connection across borders possible? We do not have exact answers but we sense that music and sound perforate these demarcations allowing connectivity within Black communities and beyond.

more →

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13.6 – 12.12 2020: The Little Gallery - Body to Body New work by Åsa Norberg & Jennie Sundén

In their practice, the artist duo Åsa Norberg and Jennie Sundén, unite textile history with pedagogical innovators throughout time. As curious researchers, they dive into different pedagogical worlds of ideas, dealing with the connections between play, democracy and the building of a community as a contrast to authoritarian methods and fixed truths.

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Women

Tuesdays and Thursdays 13:00–16:00 Three times a week women from the Järva area meet at Tensta konsthall to work with different kinds of crafts. Through joint handiwork, a safe space is made possible where conversation and exchange of experience is at the center. The craftsmanship skills that women in the group already have is picked up and the teacher role alternates between the participants. This way, knowledge about techniques such as embroidery, jewelry making, knitting and crochet.more →

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Futures: Katharina Berndt Rasmussen and Moa Bursell

20.11 18:30 Futures: Katharina Berndt Rasmussen and Moa Bursell

Katharina Berndt Rasmussen
Imagine Linda, a business woman with strong anti-racist values. Despite her explicit values, she employs only light-skinned people, with Swedish-sounding names. Can we explain the difference between her explicit values and actual behaviour? A similar situation exists on the social level: Sweden is a liberal democracy with strong, anti-discrimination laws that forbid ethnic discrimination. According to very recent investigations, racist attitudes are on the decline amongst Swedes and a clear majority declare positive attitudes towards multiplicity. However, despite this, statistics indicate a widespread ethnic segregation and discrimination. How can this discrepancy be explained on both the individual and social level?

During the last 10-15 years, social science researchers have identified correlations between discriminating behaviour and so-called implicit prejudices. They have shown that these prejudices can contradict an individual’s explicit values and that they exist in all of us. Research results can contribute to explaining observed ethnic discrimination on the individual level — as in Linda’s case — and on the societal level.

But what should we do, as individuals and in society in general, to counteract our implicit prejudices and their effects? One answer to this question requires a moral philosophical perspective, in addition to the social scientific one. I will talk about moral philosophical questions such as: can Linda really be held responsible for implicit prejudices that she is unaware of? Should we blame or censure her? And how far should we go in our attempts to counteract implicit prejudices?

Self-presentation: I am a researcher in practical philosophy at the Institute for Future Studies. My areas of philosophical interest include political philosophy, moral philosophy and feminist philosophy. I have previously carried out research on democracy, discrimination, sexism, racism, harm and justice. In my present research I examine the moral philosophical implications that accompany empirical research on implicit bias. I received my PhD in 2013 at Stockholm University, with the thesis Democracy and the Common Good: A Study of the Weighted Majority Rule. The thesis was awarded the Stockholm University Association’s prize for the best thesis in the Humanities at Stockholm University. I am a university instructor, teaching courses in critical thinking, feminist philosophy, modern political philosophy and normative ethics. I am also editorial assistant for Tidskrift för Politisk Filosofi (the journal of political philosophy), a member of SWIP-Sweden (the Society for Women in Philosophy Sweden) and engaged in the public debate concerning issues such as equality, justice and democracy.

Moa Bursell: Can We Counteract Prejudices That We Don’t Know We Have?

Ethnic discrimination creates an unequal access to resources and opportunities. This relates not least to encounters between citizens and authorities, when ethnic background can affect, for instance, a civil servant’s judgement of how social welfare should be distributed or to encounters between employers and job applicants, when the assessment of the applicant’s qualifications or merits can be influenced.

Discriminatory judgements can depend on implicit — that is, unconscious — values that influence individuals without their knowing it. However, there are studies showing that these implicit negative attitudes can be reduced — or alternatively, controlled — at least temporarily through various psychological exercises. But we still don’t know whether these changes are temporary or permanent. Neither do we know if a reduction of implicit negative attitudes or increased control over them has any significant effect on the real assessments and decisions that employers and civil servants make concerning employment or distribution of welfare. I will present existing research in this area and discuss the form in which efforts to counteract unconscious prejudices might take.

Self-presentation: I am a researcher in sociology at the Institute for Future Studies. In 2012 I defended my PhD thesis, Ethnic Discrimination, Name Change and Labour Market Inequality — Mixed Approaches to Ethnic Exclusion in Sweden. I have continued to research ethnic discrimination in the labour market, and on discrimination in encounters between citizens and public institutions.

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Futures is a series of seminars at Tensta konsthall in collaboration with the Institute for Future Studies, for presentation throughout 2018

Can we be optimistic about the future of the world and mankind? Seldom has this question been so contentious as it is now. On the one hand, infant mortality, poverty and the number of violent crimes and wars in the world have decreased radically, while longevity, literacy, access to education, health care and clean water have increased. On the other hand, we face a serious climate crisis at the same time as several bloody conflicts continue, with consequent untold numbers of people seeking refuge. We are also witnessing a rise in racist and anti-democratic attitudes and movements in many places, and national sovereignty is being challenged by, amongst other things, technological developments that have created new, difficult to decipher infrastructures and new governance structures and processes.

In this lecture series, some of the themes and phenomena that will influence future developments will be discussed. How can democracy survive in a globalised world, where the importance of nation states is declining and technique and communication corporations are gaining more and more influence? Within what time frame do we need to think about “futures”? Do studies of the future need a Copernican turn with less human-centrism and a different conception of intelligence? How are tomorrow’s values affected by the waves of immigrants and new social media? New ways to discriminate against people have been seen recently — how can efforts against such kinds of injustice be reinforced? Does the survival of humankind depend on possibilities to leave our planet and move elsewhere in cosmos?

The seminar series is part of Tensta konsthall’s 20th anniversary.