News

During the autumn of 2021 I will perform my work “The Potato Economy” for different art associations around Sweden. The work is part of the project “Performance on Zoom” produced by Sveriges Konstföreningar.

Based on my large collection of stamps from various public institutions, government bodies and private companies, I will be telling a story of money, power and bureaucracy while performing a number of actions and movements where stamping becomes a powerful performative act.

The work will be performed for Socialstyrelsens konstförening, Totalförsvarets forskningsinstituts konstförening, Sveriges Konstföreningar Norrbotten, Sveriges Konstföreningar Gävleborg, Konstföreningen Esplanaden (Kemikalieinspektionen), Folkhälsomyndighetens konstförening, Studio Växt, Konsthantverkscentrum, Sveriges konstföreningar, Strängnäs konstförening, Boo konstförening.  

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Read more about the project

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This year’s conference will take place in the forest between Töreboda and Laxå 11-12 June. There are three intensive program items on the agenda, where repetition and structure are at the center.

Welcome to take part in the conference’s activities on Kanslibyråns Instagram account. The conference applies a variable schedule and the program items will be announced gradually. Stay updated on Friday and Saturday to experience the gathering digitally.

Image: Program item 3 – “Eye level”

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Instagram: @kanslibyran

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During the summer of 2021 am participating in Havremagasinets exhibition “Soil” as part of the project “Artists interpret the AP-funds“.

“John Huntington and Ilona Huss Walin survey the esthetics and vocabulary in this series of paintings. It is a pre-study for Huntington’s and Huss Walin’s contribution to the project Konstnärer tolkar AP-fonderna.

One finds it difficult not to laugh studying the paintings. There is a playfulness and generous dose of sarcasm. The contradictions of the source material become evident in the psychotic smile of the Preem-bear or in the misspelling of“Human Enegy”. Simply because the expression is simplistic and childish it becomes an excellent means of dethroning and demystifying the multinational giant corporations that lets us approach them in a more direct and honest manner. Because isn’t their behavior – ignoring and denying the consequences of their actions, if anything, infantile and childish. In these images we witness that reality without the veneer innocence created by their marketing departments. We meet them face-to-face on our own level, or perhaps, slightly below our level. We have no obligation to treat them with deference simply because they are huge international businesses. After all, it is our pensions. Every Swedish worker is a co-owner.”

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Read more about the exhibition

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I will participate in Expanded Tiny Festival 2021 with a new performance-work. Tiny festival 2021 is a week of performance, choreography, poetry, music, voice, sound, film and visual art mixed with installations and interventions. The festival with take place indoors and outdoors around Mathuggstorget in Gotheburg.

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For more information see the Facebook-event: Expanded Tiny Festival 2021

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Kanslibyrån is very happy to be able to continue its mission of advocating friendly inefficiency, naive thinking and positive irrationality in an exhibition at Växjö Konsthall 16 October 2020 – 9 jan 2021.

“The artists Per-Arne Sträng and John Huntington are performing actions, a kind of everyday revolt against habitual behaviour, bureaucracy and the notion of a rational society. They do it by hacking well known paths and executing a kind of controlled explosions of phenomenons we barely perceive but still obey. ”

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Read more on Växjö Konsthalls webpage

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Konsthall323 was founded by Frida Krohn and Ylva Trapp in 2010, and has since hosted a vast number of exhibitions and events. Now the institution is celebrating its ten year anniversary with a group show of former collaborators, and Kanslibyrån is very happy to be counted as one of these.

Other participating artists are Anna Sörenson, Ami Kohara, Aeron Bergman, Alejandra Salinas, Maria Toll, Elisabeth Frieberg, Ulrika Gomm, Anne-Liis Kogan, Gabi Dao, Cissi Hultman, Karin Backström och Jon Perman.

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Read more in the Facebook-event

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Kanslibyrån is participating with two video works in the exhibition Videorama 1 at Gallery 54 in Gothenburg. We will show documentation of two actions from The Archive of Actions: Action No. 411: Take turns carrying each other, and Action No. 467: Try to stand on your head.

Kanslibyrån have been Invited to make a digital exhibition on Galleri Se Konst Instagram account for one week, 11 – 17 April 2020. We take the opportunity to show excerpts from our Visionary Archive that have never been shown before.

Translation of image above: Action No. 219: Cook too much soup / Action No. 1042: Take a cab into the forest

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Galleri Se Konst on Instagram

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The opening of Kanslibyråns solo exhibition on Alingsås konsthall is on Saturday 25 January 10.00-14.00. The show titled Alternativa försvarsåtgärder (Alternative defense measures) displays both new and older works – All centered on the small scale art-activism and enchantment of everyday life that Kanslibyrån have been working with the last twelve years.

Alingsås konsthall

As a response to the workshop “Designing the Parallel Society” that Frihetsförmedlingen held in Minsk in June 2019, Elisabeth Kovtiak has written an article about the thoughts and ideas of the participating group and the founding of the new Ministry of Uncertainty in Belarus.

“The Ministry of Uncertainty is an alternative organization that replicates some technical characteristics of ministries. It will have a website, official agenda and visual identity just as any ministry. Why those? Basically, that is with what citizens can encounter once they are interested in a ministry’s activities. The real activities of ministries in Belarus are quite opaque: hidden behind the bureaucracy. Unlike the ‘real’ ministries, the Ministry of Uncertainty initiates and fosters public discussions that do not aim to come up with a certain solution. This alternative institution is both a criticism of the passivity of a bloated bureaucratic system and the unwillingness of public authorities to take responsibilities. Another function of the Ministry of Uncertainty is to create a meeting place for the citizens where they can discuss the facade stability and an uncertainty and anxiety that exist behind it. “

Participants in the worshop and creators of the Ministry of Uncertainty is Alina Dzeravianka, Elisabeth Kovtiak, Christin Wahlström Eriksson and Sophia Sadovskaya. The workshop was led by Lars Noväng and myself as part of the STATUS Project

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Read the whole article: Designing the Parallel Society in Belarus: Adressing the dichotomy of stability and uncertainty by Elisabeth Kovtiak

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Logo design by Valentine Duduk

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