Change
6 June – 1 december 2019
The climate is changing, with unpredictable consequences. As the climate changes, we need to change. As individuals, as a society, as a global community. Some argue that the current economic model does not sustain 7 billion people on the planet. How about 7 billion people that want a car, that demands air travel, a house, meat twice a week, exotic touristic escapes, new phones, TVs and a new wardrobe every other year.
For this exhibition, Havremagasinet has invited artists from Northern Europe to shed light on some of these global challenges, formulating a regional perspective embedded into the local context. These artistic positions contribute to articulating our visions for the future and invite us to think further about how we as a species need to behave and change to preserve this unique place in the infinity of space.
More information can be found in the Folder (available only in Swedish).
About the artists
The artist duo Bigert & Bergström investigates questions about and implications of geoengineering – can technology be the answer to technology-induced harm to the climate system, is it already inevitable? Who will take responsibility for any unwanted outcome from manipulating the climate system?
Kjetil Berge and Jason Havneraas contribute to reflect on the fundamental change we as individuals, as national societies as well as a global community, have to face involving collective action. How can we grasp climate change if thinking on a global scale? Wouldn’t it be much more helpful to feel and experience through our bodies?
The artist duo Gideonsson/Londré takes a different turn on how we understand climate change as something external by putting the human body, their bodies, into the center of observations around microclimate, protectivity and finiteness.
Ninna Berger emerges into the apocalyptic dimension of climate change, yielding the essence of the threats we face and imagining the consequences for the individual. Do we need to identify new systems of everyday ethics that are universally valid and obeyed? Or is the assumption that spirituality will solve the challenge humanity has put on itself a false conclusion? Can change indeed happen by reading, theorizing and talking?
Emilija Skarnulyte dives into mythical spheres, an attempt at providing a perspective arching the globe through the world’s seas as a mermaid, the most advanced sea mammal. Is losing our connection with Nature in our technician civilization responsible for our wildly aggressive exploitation of the planet?
Anders Sunna takes a clear stand against the harm we do to our environment and how globalized structures exploit local communities and their resources—maintaining the urgent question of what can we learn from cultures that created and maintained values of pre-capitalist thinking.
Mattias Käll’s work puts the leftovers of our daily life into the center by collecting his family’s household’s plastic garbage for a year. We have a sculpture by Käll placed by the entrance and a photographic series in the elevator.
Heikki Willamo’s work comprises a probe into species that made Finland their new home. His photographs augment highly concerning yet subtle changes to local ecosystems through introduced species.
Hanna Ljungh’s survey of Kebnekaise is an immersion into the most difficult to grasp, most crucial dimension yet when reflecting change – time.
