OhiO Wednesday

OhiO Wednesday’s November 2020 session gave a chance for a collaborative duo MASU (Mattias Gunnarsson + Susanne Westerberg) to expose their collaboration with the collective DOMA (Ida Sondell, Fanny Lindh & Sofia Florell). The project, presented by all five contributors described the creative response to a cancelled exhibition. Originally, an exhibition of MASU works was to be produced and curated by DOMA exhibited within Gothenburg Kulturnatta 2020. Yet, unfortunately this exhibition had become a ”victim of the circumstance” of our pandemic context. Encouragingly this cancellation was able to birth a new form of collaborating  between the two groups in the near future. In a sense the cancellation has given an opportunity to add a level to their budding collaboration. The launched project will focus on the narration of an exhibition becoming the material. Hence, turning it into an exploration of transmitting the stories from one event to and thru a new space as platform for the material. In this first round, only MASU + a few invited guests will attend the exhibition at the Gathenhielmska House and then re-tell the story (thru various media) at Gallery BOX in mid January and thru this possibly ask: when is attendance necessary? What is the value of the stories that get retold for any one event?

 Following the dynamic presentation where all five characters took turns to fill OhiO Wednesday’s 15 minute time limit, a discussion about the relationship of the collaborative partners in this constellation took place. Even, some requests for some information from one side was transmitted to the other.

 We all will have to watch for the results of this exploration at Galleri Box in January 22-24 / 2021.

 For more information on the work of both these collectives:

OhiO Wednesday’s October 2020 session created a space for Samantha Hookway to gain feedback on an on-going project where many roles and hats are held by Samantha within her collective studio, Studio Alight. The project at its heart is the designing and developing of E.A.T. Spatial which is a semi-digital, semi-physical exhibition experience and a mix between the site-specific and the website-specific. Academic conferences are now seen naming the merging between meeting digital and meeting physical “phygital”, yet, E.A.T. Spatial is more experimental than just mixing the meeting modes - it also aims to experiment in blending modes of physical media and digital media art-viewing inside the physical space a gallery. Hookway went on to include that the debut exhibition beaming out from Gothenburg’s own, ICIA Konsthall, is another task Hookway has taken on - the curator. And that a group exhibition with international artists included titled MANIPULATIONS is E.A.T. Spatial’s debut exhibition. MANIPULATIONS opens NOV. 14 at 17:30 at e.a.t.spatial.hub.earth.

The OhiO W. discussion space gave room for a discussion of how E.A.T Spatial shall function and its future capabilities whereas the space developed could allow for more uses than just the exhibition MANIPULATIONS itself. Also, questions of how did you get here, where is the funding coming from, how are you getting the word out about this project and how do you feel about taking on the role of a curator were asked and the conversation meandered in an interesting way between thoughts on the digital and spatial, the curatorial, the technical and the hands-on about ”how to”.

In OhiO Wednesday’s September 2020, Onkar Kular presented the on-going project The Common Room / Allmänningen a public platform situated within GU and an explorative model that aims at “facilitating acts of being together.” The project also challenges many of the conventions of art schools, and in particular, it questions the art school gallery’s mode as well as the University in regards to its public-ness; its accessibility and its sharing resources. It opens for a conversation on the University as an already established Maker space and the possibilities of time, internet, hardware, software and skills as sharable commodities. The project has [naturally] been transformed because of COVID19 but even so at its core – are modes of possibilities under the titles of “Usership”, “Research De-centre” and “Residency” where April/May 2021 is underworks with collaborators from abroad and local.

Then, in the OhiO W. discussion space, Onkar uncovered an influence for The Common Room’s proposed faculty role of “supportable” being from the 90s sitcom “Friends” and the mode of working that transpired amongst ca. 20 script writers who wrote the script all at once around the same table.  Furthermore “supportable” inside The Common Room is an exploration sharing conditions and resources; and hence, a common-ing of the University and one of the three residencies set in 2021 is Post Workers Theatre, from London, who will LARP (Live Action Role Play), and imagine the role of the “supportable.”

In OhiO Wednesday’s May 2020, Ram Krishna Ranjan took us on a journey into his PhD project in Film where he is creating methods for inquiry – research and film alike– to interact and take care of stories of the subaltern classes. His project with its departure point of the 1943 Bengal Famine is a project of listening, practicing reflexivity and methods of mediation. During the short presentation a small clip from the film+phd-in-progress was showed. In the showing captured conversations plus an uncovering of the blurriness within the tense relationship of being hungry, living in an oppressed class and colonial policies was activated. As a maker and a researcher, a triangulation method is used where Ram balances his role by strategically collaborating with local Patchitra artists, and the villagers. Together they create conversations and capture oral stories through painted scrolls, performance and film.

The presentation was followed by a discussion where an appreciation was relayed by the audience for the honest approach of attempting to actively listen instead of merely representing subordinate societies in film. Perhaps, the power differences can never be undone but at least there are modes to work towards a more equal positioning. Also, Ram revealed that there is a blurriness in time presenting itself in the project – 1943 reminds the villagers of famine in1985 and more. This blurriness of these flowing histories is highlighted but, also, is present inside the action of mediation.  

In OhiO Wednesday’s second online edition, Maddie Leach took us inside a new proposal being cooked up for a potential public art project that re-engages with the infamous “modern artistic technological cathedral”, LTH-Föntänen” [or commonly known as “Laxtrappan”] – which never worked to the vision of both the original architect and sculptor. This sculpture sits stripped bare and dormant since the attempt to reconstruct it in the 90s. Leach voiced early reasons why she aims to work with this site, this structure and the community that surrounds this 1970s work in Lund. The base inquiries around this work was, also, relayed: Can public artworks fail? Can public artworks be revitalized; temporary; permanent? And then, adding extra inquiries surrounding the role proposed to play as a re-engagement-provocateur where notions of adaption, authorship, intellectual property law and creating contracts could become objectified as art objects/experiences.

The discussion that followed evolved and created space for Leach to further explain these inquiries this work addresses. The discussion also touched upon thoughts on plans to work with the community that surrounds this historical piece which includes e.g. estates of the original creators, deans of Lund University and more. We also discussed that the Mathematics department is next door to LTH-Föntänen. They work with calculations for engineering contexts, and there is irony in the fact that the fountain has never really worked throughout the 50 years it has faced their building.

In OhiO Wednesday’s first online edition, Kalle Ekeroth and Christian Strömqvist inside their collaboration PINPIN STUDIO presented their on-going sound sculpture project commissioned for a playground in Altoona, Wisconsin. The project consists of three large metal geode-shaped trolls that when touched in interactive spots – they make a series of sounds. To level up the engagement, these three sculptures can be touched by multiple children at the same time, and when that happens the children make music together. Kalle and Christian revealed the behind the scenes of how this project which has been on-going since January 2019 has been worked on via distance because early on, they made a decision to not travel to Wisconsin unless absolutely necessary. That original decision was mainly based on the budget and climate crisis concerns.

Yet, then, the discussion that followed took up this distance working on a designing a commissioned playground piece via distance as its main topic (obviously with our current COVID-19 situation). The duo revealed that they have felt that working from distance has both moments of clarity and moments of opacity in the process. One aspect of clarity was that this project has given them a realization that they for aesthetic reasons have the right to stand firm on some decisions even with the distance – they just had to figure out how to visually communicate to gain understandings in Wisconsin. While also there was a realization that there are several moments of controlling the material execution that had to be relinquished – they were simply not there to inspect the process but had to watch from afar. Hence, trust and clear, clever, and visual communication was an absolute must in this project and it worked – this we can all take with us.

Stefan Jensen presented “Den Svenska Linjen” (The Swedish Policy) which is a project in its early stages dealing with photographic production using an investigative approach. The content of this project was about the hidden-in-plain-sight program of the mining and the handling of Uranium in Sweden in the 1950s. Currently, the project consisted of a site visit, tour, and interview that was visualized through photographs and archival studies. 

The OhiO Wednesday moderated discussion connected to the roles and ways of Jensen’s inquiry-based project. The group opened up and discussed what it takes to ‘read’ a site and reflected about the role of the artist in a journalistic research project. 

Naima Callenberg presented her on-going city-planning exhibition project with Röhsska Museet, which will open in the fall of 2020. Unfortunately for OhiO, she could not get into details on content and participating architects but she shared her process of curating and the process of her exhibition design. Her project was circling around her the notion of “discursive architecture” and she was mulling over the question: “how does one communicate a speculative project?”. 

After the project was presented a discussion around the question Naima posed became alive as the group delved into communication platforms from the on-the-site exhibition as well as websites or beyond. Another notable discussion was around the role of the architect as being both a draftsperson, a visionary, and a discursive architect. 

Björn Renner took the risk and launched a new project at OhiO Wednesday in October. The work is an investigation of the statement from a long-time client: “Just make it look expensive.” This statement inspired Björn to investigate just what are the aesthetics of “looking expensive” and how can he take artistic freedom within these aesthetics. It was also revealed that he will work with VR, dancers moving with abstracted bodies and utilizing patterns found in luxury design brands.   

After the project was presented a lively discussion around the provocation of actually taking on the statement “look expensive” within the creative process came about. Through this discussion, the crowd really got into a constructive feedback session of the work-in-progress presented by Renner plus a self-critical conversation of what we, in the School of Design, tend to believe is “taboo.” or “unspoken”. Renner even received several interesting departure points for the projects further research and development such as considering the question: “how might one move expensive?”

Lindsey Martin presented during the Gothenburg Design Festival as an OhiO Wednesday Special Edition. Lindsey is a professor in Film at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. The OhiO Wednesday Special Edition was conducted over Skype with a group in Ohio and a group attending The Gothenburg Design Festival at HDK. In the Special Edition event, the moderated session opened up to across the Atlantic Ocean to both groups creating an interesting real-virtual spatial conversation. 

More specifically, Martin presented her work-in-progress animated film, Mountain Monster which is a work that visually tells a story of mental health, folktale and an Appalachian Mountain Region tradition of having family-specific folktales. This work includes Martin’s family’s monster, the Pottero.  

Then, the discussion part of the event opened up to sharings on how collaborations are implementing in the world of animated film. Martin collaborates across many borders for instance, with illustrators, but also the project Mountain Monster includes a series of community workshops for which is a platform where Martin also meets collaboration. The group in Ohio and the group in Gothenburg were both very active and it was a lively discussion that inspired us all. 

Linda Holmer (with special guest and collaborator Ina Åshaug in the audience) led us through an experience of understanding how she works with picture books by exemplifying the story we each (the audience) has within us.

After the project was presented a discussion was held around the experience of the collaboration between the two and an explanation of how their practice of passing the work back in forth between works in real life. There was also an interesting discussion of how within a learning experience failures or things that do not work as predicted tells us incredible stories. 

Markus Bergström presented his on-going project that lives within his studio, and his free-standing course Between Design and Architecture. In particular, Markus presented the work a group did, as an extracurricular activity, in an old fish factory in Iceland. Plus he showed ideas of how he is thinking about developing the work done under this umbrella of the course Between Design and Architecture. 

After the project was presented a discussion around what are the differences formed in the terms “design” and “architecture” as Bergström is working in this space between these two disciplines. Also, a sharing of how the process of working in a fish factory in Iceland was deepened, as well as, a possible idea of what could be next up was postulated.  

Kalle Klockars presented his on-going project of re-developing the HDK-Valand BA Design program. In his presentation, he gave insights into how HDK’s BA program is transdisciplinary and just what transdisciplinary means at HDK-Valand Design.

Thomas Laurien and Theo Ågren presented a project for which they collaborate with each other, and possibly more incredible, they collaborate with a riverbed, the Viskan. The duo is conducting on-going artistic research and experimentation on finding ways to collaborate with non-human earthlings such as plants, animals and more. 

After the project was presented a discussion around agency and legality around rights for more-than-human actors was conducted. There were also plenty of questions around how one might conduct this type of project and the duo’s main answer was that they aim to find ways to listen, celebrate and share the work with Viskan. 

Mattias Gunnarson and Sussan Westerberg (MASU) launched the project (Material) Site recordings at this OhiO Wednesday. 

After the project was presented a discussion around how could time play a part in the events planned and executed in the future of this project. And also, the audience and MASU dug in a bit and came to a discursive understanding of what it is like to participate with a community of teenagers versus what they may speculate while launching the next project which was set in nature, off the beaten path. 

Samantha Hookway (with special guest and collaborator Fredrik Garneij, also from Studio Alight, in the audience) presented a work-in-progress titled “Incredible Exhales”. The work presented was a series of collaborations between Hookway and others. The collaborations include a neural network trained to draw in her style, or team in her studio - Studio Alight, a group of workshop participants collectively crafting with wool, and whoever will be next. 

After the project was presented a discussion around what are the responsibilities of a maker when collaborating across borders came up. And, also, with the help of Hookway’s collaborator, adding his voice from the crowd, some simple understanding of just what machine-learning is about was relayed and a discussion on design’s role in this machine-run world was held.