The publication compiles the second year of the project and is based on works by artists-in-residence Johnny Chang and Afrang Nordlöf Malekian at Grafikens Hus, as well as yasmine eid-sabbagh’s work at the Arab Image Foundation. They explore, in various ways, “gatherings” as organizational events rather than acts of collecting. One question that the publication’s contributors address is the fact that a collection always risks marking the absence of something. Ghosts, as a concept to talk about how archives and collections exclude, reveal how these structures and systems write their own stories, where presence is marked/defined by absence.

The projects artist-in-residence, Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, publish his script to the performance Suddenly It Happens! that was part of his investigation av the history of the lottery and Public Art Agency Sweden’s collection of prints. The inspiration for this work comes from Grafikens Hus’collaboration with the state-owned lottery Penninglotteriet between 1995–1998, where 75 prints were commissioned to be reproduced in miniature for the scratch-off lottery.

A version of the script from the designer and artist-in-residence, Johnny Chang’s performance lecture Living with Images is also published in the book, reworked into a lyrical essay. Living with Images is a performance lecture that took place at Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus in collaboration with the curatorial project A Movement to Hold. The essay is filled with voices, quotes, reflections, references, phenomenological investigation, and music. It invites the reader on a poetic and political walk in dialogue with archives, people, and acrosstimes.

The two scripts provide an insight into the artistic process. The work of the artists-in-residence is part of the project’s proposals for methods of acquisition, collection, and archives within Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts. 

This publication also includes an interview with artist yasmine eid-sabbagh by Johnny Chang and Afrang Nordlöf Malekian. eid-sabbagh works at the Arab Image Foundation—a non-profit organisationbased in Beirut with over 50,000 photos and documents in its collection. The objects are from or connected to the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab diaspora. In the conversation with eid-sabbagh, names, categorisations, conditions for acquisition, and preservation are discussed, as well as what it means that a collection is absent but claims to exist.

–> Order the publication here.

Design: Johnny Chang.

Book release: publication Year 2

The publication compiles the second year of the project and is based on works by artists-in-residence Johnny Chang and Afrang Nordlöf Malekian at Grafikens Hus, as well as yasmine eid-sabbagh’s work at the Arab Image Foundation. They explore, in various ways, “gatherings” as organizational events rather than acts of collecting. One question that the publication’s contributors address is the fact that a collection always risks marking the absence of something. Ghosts, as a concept to talk about how archives and collections exclude, reveal how these structures and systems write their own stories, where presence is marked/defined by absence.

During the release there will be a panel talk. The conversation will revolve around the conditions for acquisition and care in archives and collections, designations and categorizations, as well as the implications of a collection being absent while still claiming to exist. It will also raise the question of whether, and how, cultural organizations with archives and collections can form support systems in times of instability and crisis.

Participants include Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, Johnny Chang, yasmine eid-sabbagh, and Anneli Bäckman, with introduction by Magnus Ericson and moderation by Macarena Dusant.

The book release is a collaboration between Grafikens Hus and IASPIS, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts.

• Date: Monday 16 september 2024
• Time: 17:30–19:30
• Place: IASPIS/Konstnärsnämnden + online
• Address: Maria Skolgata 83, Stockholm
• Language: English
• Free entrance, no registration needed
• Join online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84837370533

Welcome!

Anneli Bäckman is a curator based in Staare (Östersund), where she has recently joined Gaaltije Saemien Museume, a museum rooted in southern Saepmie. One of the research strands that she is currently exploring, is the relationship to various collections that reflect South Saami history, as the museum has no collection of its own. Since 2012, she has been working as a curator at Botkyrka konsthall.

Johnny Chang is an interdisciplinary and interdependent designer, artist, and researcher based in Stockholm. His practice is interested in discursive processes of sense making (and breaking)—or poetics—of visual and material culture in relation to social-historical conditions. Chang’s artistic research attends to questions of care, access, and tactics for gathering, listening to and centering knowledges that emerge from diaspora liminality, community histories, and social movement archives. 

yasmine eid-sabbagh is an artist and researcher. Her practice focuses on exploring potentials of human agency by engaging in experimental, collective work processes departing from photography. These include (counter-)archiving practices such as the negotiation around a potential digital archive (re)assembled in collaboration with inhabitants of Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tyr, Lebanon. She is a member of the Arab Image Foundation, a practitioner-led archival institution. 

Afrang Nordlöf Malekian is an artist working with history’s unnoticed creators and puts history into use as a form of documentation and aspiration that calls for improbable and impossible futurities. His work examines how narratives and hierarchies disappear, return, and transform in the most unexpected ways. As an artist he has exhibited at various venues and has also curated exhibitions and programs as part of the nomadic film and culture project, noncitizen.

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Macarena Dusant is curator and process leader for the project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts at Grafikens Hus, and editor of the publication. Magnus Ericson is Head of Applied Arts at IASPIS, leading the programme in design, crafts, architecture, spatial and urban practice.

Interview with Mmabatho Thobejane – Publication Year 1

By Nilo Amlashi

Mmabatho Thobejane was the process leader and curator for the first year of Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts. She is also the editor of the publication that summarizes the first year of the project with presentations by Artists in Residency Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, a conversation between Artists in Residency Munish Wadhia and Art Historian Åsa Bharathi Larsson, and the Monthly Letters which Mmabatho published during the project year. Guest curator at Grafikens Hus, Nilo Amlashi, met Mmabatho for a recap of the project.

Nilo Amlashi: As the process leader and curator of the first out of the three-years planned for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts could you tell us a bit about your experience?

Mmabatho Thobejane: For the first year, a big part of my job was kind of setting the ground for the next three years. And that meant meeting the participants and people who would be a big part of the project, such as the expert council, and in a way trying to get to know them individually, their professions and their interests in the project. And it was exciting to see how everyone was really interested in the opportunity of rethinking collecting and collections.

I also worked closely with the Artists in Residency, Afrang Nordlöf Malekian and Munish Wadhia. Working with their different contributions to the project was very interesting, as well. Afrang looked at Grafikens Hus’ archive of Penninglotteriet, and Munish looked at the history of printmaking, and its ties to nation building connected to racism and capitalism. It made me understand what printmaking can be and has been as a tool. It was so great to be amongst great thinkers who are interested in rethinking the world and actioning that out. I worked closely with Johnny Chang, who designed the visual identity for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, and also was the graphic designer for the year one publication. It was great to work with people who believed in the process as an end in itself. That gave so much to the project.

Nilo Amlashi: In just a few sentences, name some of your biggest takeaways from working with this project?

Mmabatho Thobejane: I think the biggest one, was the idea that we can rethink what we think is set in stone. And that together with others, we can also action that rethinking. It was very interesting to be in that kind of space, which I think Samlande tankar/Collecting Thought is, with the participants of the project.

Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts
Project Year 1 (2021-2022)
Questioning, Investigating, Looking Back

For more info about the publication, visit the Konstshop here.

”I conducted a workshop exploring policy documents as political spaces. I split the expert council into three groups and tasked them each with reading a policy on collection and acquisition. The workshop participants found that collections serve as foundations for the museums, and that new works are acquired to “complement” the existing collection. Artist in Residence Munish Wadhia commented, “Instead of re-writing history, maybe re-imagine history?” For Grafikens Hus, currently looking ahead at building a collection, the question arises of how such a foundation can be created?” 

Read the Monthly Letter #13 by process leader and curator Macarena Dusant here.

Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council. 

“The final year of Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is here. This year our work culminates into a materialization of methods for acquisition and collection. Meaning what? I have been giving it a great deal of thought. To materialize something can mean to provide it with a body, make it tangible, even physical. I hope that a materialization will generate something that we can refer and return to, but that is still open to flexibility and renegotiation.”

Read the Monthly Letter #12 by process leader and curator Macarena Dusant here.

Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts is a project by Grafikens Hus with support from the Swedish Arts Council.