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In the exhibition An Alternative Standard, Kanslibyrån offers an in-depth study into everyday situations, overlooked objects and ordinary places. With the two projects The Archive of Actions and The Standard Stick, the bureau uses small-scale artistic interventions to highlight, scrutinise and reorganise the elements of everyday life.

Image: “Action No. 481: Wear blinders”
Exhibition opening: 13 June 11.00-15.00, opening speech 12.00
Exhibition period: 13 June – 16 August 2026

For more information see the Kungsbacka konsthall website

More information about the two projects in the show:
The Archive of Actions is the bureau’s most extensive project and consists of 789 documented artistic actions carried out primarily in public environments. The project follows a carefully developed method with lists, selection processes and planning on several levels. With the actions, Kanslibyrån tries to create shifts in perspective that invite reflection and resistance.

With the production of The Standard Stick, Kanslibyrån highlights an object that everyone has a relationship with, which carries emotional content and personal stories: an ordinary wooden stick. It is a type of object that speaks to our intuition and imagination, but which has difficulty finding a place in an overly efficiency-oriented existence. A stick stands outside traditional economic and transactional thinking. The stick becomes a symbol for the values ​​that cannot be pronounced, that are easily lost in words. In the project, the public has been invited to contribute sticks perceived to have positive qualities, within the framework of a citizen science initiative. The bureau has compiled all the information about these sticks and the average values ​​of the data have resulted in a new standard for good sticks. This new standard constitutes a pedagogical aid for those who have difficulty finding their way into, or back to, the imaginative world of sticks. In a world of choices and voices, a stable reference point is provided, that can be used in the search for one’s own gut feeling.

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Kanslibyrån (The Secretariat Bureau) is participating in the show PLAY with a large selection of documented actions from the long-term project The Archive of Actions.

“During the summer, the exhibition PLAY is presented in nine different chapters, each connected in various ways to Havremagasinet Länskonsthall’s annual theme for 2026 – PLAY. Through exhibitions, programmes, and new “studios,” the word PLAY is explored beyond its perhaps most obvious meaning of playfulness. Here, the term expands to also include playing, starting, and activating. PLAY can also become an approach: to act, to try on roles, to pretend – and through this, discover new perspectives.”

Participating artists are: Anne Marte Overaa, Lena Stenberg, Fanny Carinasdotter, Pablo Sigg, Desiree Bergström, Kanslibyrån (Per-Arne Sträng & John Huntington), Ludwig Rosengren, LoL Studio (Linnea Rosenqvist & Linnéa M.F. Larsson), Torgeir Vassvik & Ståle Stenslie.

Opening of the exhibition is May 30 at 12pm

For more information about the show, see the Havremagasinet website

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More information about The Archive of Actions

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I am participating with a work inspired by how cities and municipalities traditionally present new residential areas and development projects, where very specific values ​​are at the center and where people’s more fallible, ambivalent, and vulnerable sides are often absent. The project consists of three linked parts: publication, sculpture and performance, which together offer an experiential alternative.

Read more about the project: Emotional Urban Planning: The Screaming Pit
The work is produced in collaboration with RITE (www.rite.agency)

The Trondheim Biennale is opening 2nd of May 2026 and is Norway’s largest artist-driven biennial for temporary projects in public space – an experimental platform in the transitional phases of urban development, where artists are given a central role in exploring and activating the city’s spaces.

The Trondheim Biennale 2026 will take place in Østbyen and at Nyhavna, an area in the initial phase of an urban development driven by both public and private actors. At the same time, Trondheim has a long tradition of citizen-initiated activism, resistance and participation. Based on this history, the biennial examines how art can open new perspectives on the use of the city in transitional phases. The Trondheim Biennale is an initiative started by artists Line Anda Dalmar and Per Kristian Nygård.

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More for information about the biennale and the full program

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The Dark Administrator (Svartadministratören) is a performative lecture on bureaucracy and resistance. With the office workplace as the starting point, the work examines contemporary human beings’ heavy addiction to systematizing everything around them.

The work is a documentary collage of examples, stories, and demonstrations in which an everyday frustration linked to feelings of powerlessness and loss of meaning unfolds. Various forms of ritual protective measures are presented and an alternative professional role slowly emerges from the shadows, accompanied by apocalyptic tones composed by musician Dödsvarg (Jon Ekström).

The work is performed at Kulturhuset in Stockholm on Saturday 18 April at three occasions: 19:00, 20:30 and 22:00. The performance is in Swedish

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For more information see Kulturhuset Stadsteatern

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The work originated at Skogen in Gothenburg and has also been performed at Live Art Denmark in Copenhagen. At Kulturhuset, an updated version will be performed.

As part of a residency at Live Art Denmark, a new educational institution was developed together with a fifth-grade class from Sankt Ansgars Skole in Copenhagen. The project was carried out over five separate sessions, during which the pupils could describe and fantasize about an alternative school. The school was built up from separate modules: a teacher, a classroom, a book, a sign, an employee, a school subject, etc. Together, creating an eclectic map, a kind of alternative organizational model.

The project will continue as part of the Live Art for Kids festival in Aarhus in September 2026.

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Kanslibyrån (The Secretariat Bureau) is participating in the project “Hela havet stormar” at Konstmuseet i Skövde. The bureau is opening up a temporary branch on site, and will produce an intense schedule during the week 2-6 February 2026. The schedule includes performances in public space, developed from the long-term project “The Archive of Actions”. Some performances are durational, and some are occupying a shorter moment in time.

During the week, the project: “Collection and Analysis of Good Sticks” will start, where the general audience is welcome to donate a favourite wooden stick to be evaluated and included in the project.

For a full downloadable pdf-schedule (in Swedish) click here.

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Undercentralen (The Sub-Center) is an association of civil servants from different parts of the country. Since its inception in June 2024, the network’s participants have secretly made artistic interventions in their workplaces.

Now the first 18 months have been compiled in this 50-page publication (in Swedish)

More about Undercentralen:
The activities have been structured in the form of a digital exchange of letters where tasks have been sent out to the network’s participants at regular intervals. These tasks have then been carried out and in most cases documented.

The documentation received has been compiled as several PDF files that have been sent out to the participants. It is these PDFs that make up this publication. If you want to purchase a copy, please e-mail info@johnhuntington.se.

Active members of Undercentralen are (or have been): My, Jennie, Mia, Andreas, Maria, Bitr. kanlist, Ursula, Kundklubben, Marcus, Erik, Cathrin, Kassiopeia, Akira, Ida, Helia, Anna, Strapazia, Åsa, Glitterbok, Nora, Nicola, Marina, Morosof, Anna-Karin, Johan, Margritt, Cyxos, Liliana, Beppo, Patrik, Elin, Sten and Mattias.

The activities of the network is led by John Huntington

Undercentralen has been accompanied by the musician Jon Ekström who, in the various constellations Arvsmassan, Dödsvarg, Signalbolaget, Ekot and the Subcentralen, has composed music based on the network’s activities. These compositions can be found on streaming services under the title “Årsredovisning”

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“Department of Unexpected Measures” (Avdelningen för oväntade åtgärder) was a network of employees at Mittuniversitetet who created small-scale artworks in their work environments. In practice, the activities were structured as a newsletter where participants were given a task each week for over a ten-week period.

To see the results of the project, see this PDF. (In Swedish)

The daily workday for researchers and teachers is largely characterized by administrative tasks performed in a digital environment. University employees share this situation with most employees of the public sector. The technological development of recent decades has the possibility for greater control and detailed management. This means that important core values ​​in various activities, values ​​that are based on judgment and ethical responsibility, risk ending up further down the priority list. The possibility for speed and constant communication offered by digitalization also risks making everyday work fragmented and unfocused.

In order to provide space for reflection, promote long-term thinking, counteract political control and handle the downsides of digitalization, the “Department for Unexpected Measures” was therefore initiated.

Overall, “The Department of Unexpected Measures” aimed to create space for the participants to find increased room for action in everyday work, process frustration with different administrative systems and control methods, and challenge their own and others’ ideas about how creativity can take place within professional practice. The project’s small-scale artworks found their way into the work environment and became a series of employee-produced public art in micro format.

“The Department of Unexpected Measures” was Clara, Christina, Sara, Anna, Karin, Maja, Janani, Leif, Kajsa, Katarina, Mikael, Eva, Lena, Caroline, Karin.

“The Department for Unexpected Measures” was a joint art project between Mittuniversitetets Forum for Digitalization (Fodi), Forum for Gender Research (FGF) and John Huntington.

Image: Assignment 7: Place yourself in a confined space at work / performed and photographed by Kajsa.

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A mini performance festival at Skogen in Gothenburg 31 Oct – 1 Nov 2025, where the work “Övning i krympande för 20-40 personer” (Excercise in Shrinking or 20-40 people) will be performed.

Friday, 31 of October 18:00:
We shall never be strangers to each other by Mirja Timm
“Övning i krympande för 20-40 personer” av John Huntington & Sara Granér

Saturday 1 of November 18:00
XENO SARX by Last Oblivion
Object Agency – Are you ever disgusted by human breath? by Lisa Mårtensson

More information about the event and how to book a spot go to the Skogen website

The performance “Övning i krympande för 20-40 personer” is developed as part of RITE (rite.agency)

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The exhibition “System Care” (Systemvård) comprises experimental strategies from the alternative aspects of bureaucracy and the undercurrents of administration. Here, society’s pain spots and logical fallacies are addressed, based on the daily work of office workers and civil servants. New rituals and protective measures are presented that constitute persistent attempts to ward off powerlessness and ethical stress.

The works in the exhibition constitute small-scale, yet powerful, ceremonial acts presented in an educational video format, but also contain ritual artifacts in the form of objects, images and photos.

The exhibition is opening on October 18th and is up until November 2nd

As a prequel there is a performative lecture on Friday the 17th of October titled “Making secret files and other powerful practices.” The performance is about bureaucracy, creativity and resistance. With the office workplace as a starting point, the work addresses contemporary people’s heavy addiction to systematizing everything in their environment. The event includes a short practical exercise, for which each participant is asked to bring a printed text-based document from their current workplace (There will be extra documents for those who have forgotten). The work contains music by Jon Ekström/Dödsvarg and is 60 minutes long.

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More information about the exhibition space on the Ahlbergshallen website

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