Hello! My name is Mmabatho Thobejane. I am an independent curator, with a practice that centres black and decolonial feminisms. I am also the process leader and curator for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, a three-year project undertaken by Grafikens Hus and supported by Kulturrådet. This monthly letter documents the project from my perspective and is one of the ways you, who are interested in the project, can follow its process.
July 2022
Read Monthly Report #7 here.
Hello! My name is Mmabatho Thobejane. I am an independent curator, with a practice that centres black and decolonial feminisms. I am also the process leader and curator for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, a three-year project undertaken by Grafikens Hus and supported by Kulturrådet. This monthly letter documents the project from my perspective and is one of the ways you, who are interested in the project, can follow its process.
June 2022
Read Monthly Report #6 here.
A Sahib’s War – A conversation with Munish Wadhia and Åsa Bharathi Larsson
Thursday 9 June 2022
18.00 – 19:30
Fiberspace Gallery, Katarina Bangata 40, 116 39 Stockholm
This conversation between Munish Wadhia and Åsa Bharathi Larsson takes place within the frames of Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts. In this conversation, Wadhia and Bharathi Larsson, both of whose research weave in and out of print and printmaking, have a conversation about their common art practice/research. Munish Wadhia is an artist in residence as part of Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts and will in conversation with Åsa, share his research and work within the project, which amongst other things, includes acts of erasure in the construction of a particular and singular Swedish national identity.
The title for the conversation, “A Sahib’s War”, is borrowed from Rudyard Kipling’s short story, in which Kipling writes about a Sikh soldier, Umr Singh, narrating and navigating the Second Boer War. Grafikens Hus carries out the project Collecting Thoughts with the aim of looking at graphic collections in Sweden and internationally from a postcolonial and intersectional perspective. Collecting Thoughts is supported by the Swedish Arts Council.
Grafikens Hus carries out the project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts with the aim of looking at graphic collections in Sweden and internationally from a postcolonial and intersectional perspective.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is supported by the Swedish Arts Council.
Monthly Report #5
Hello! My name is Mmabatho Thobejane. I am an independent curator, with a practice that centres black and decolonial feminisms. I am also the process leader and curator for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, a three-year project undertaken by Grafikens Hus and supported by Kulturrådet. This monthly letter documents the project from my perspective and is one of the ways you, who are interested in the project, can follow its process.
April 2022
Read Monthly Report #5 here.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts Reading Circle #3
Tuesday, 24 May 2022
18.00 – 20.00
Repslagargatan 15B, Stockholm
In connection with Grafikens Hus’s three-year project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, this reading circle centres collecting, collections and archives. Through the project, Grafikens Hus formulates a method for collecting that can guide our future collecting decisions. Through gathering to read we clear the space to critically reflect on collections and processes of their formation together. During the circles, we will read and discuss various texts on collecting, collections and archives.
For this session, we will be reading ’An(other) Invitation to Epistemological Humility: Notes towards a Self-Critical Approach to Counter-Knowledges’ by Otto Maduro. This is a chapter taken from the book ‘Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy‘ edited by Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and Eduardo Mendieta. Copies of the text will be provided prior to the session.
The reading circles are facilitated by process leader, Mmabatho Thobejane. Register for this third reading circle via email at mmabatho.thobejane@grafikenshus.se.
Arrangements to join via zoom can be made.
In collaboration with Kvinnohistoriska.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is supported by Kulturrådet.
A Pile of Ash – Artist dinner with Afrang Nordlöf Malekian
Thursday 28 april 2022
18.00 – 19:00
Södertälje konsthall, Storgatan 15, 151 72 Södertälje
“I have learned from poetry to go directly to what is burning. But fire tends to spread. Some metaphors are as beautiful “in reality” as on paper (like a rose). Fire is not one of them. Writing words that feel, that burn, are associated with risks. See, the poem has already turned into a pile of ash”. This is what the author Mara Lee writes in her doctoral dissertation, The Writing of Others: Writing conceived as resistance, responsibility and time (2014). Taking risks – working so that it burns – can be associated with an end in a pile of soot – ash – which has historically been used to nourish new life. What kind of archive can be born from the ashes left behind by the thousands of prints that burnt in the 2014 fire in Mariefred?
During a small dinner at Södertälje konsthall, artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian will moderate a conversation based on his work-in-progress research in connection to the project Collecting Thoughts at Grafikens Hus. Together, we will study prints, read texts, share stories and eat food. The conversation will circle around the current collection at Grafikens Hus, prints in (food) stores, and prints on penninglotten – lottery tickets.
To join the dinner and conversation please RSVP to mmabatho.thobejane@grafikenshus.se.
The event will take place in English and Swedish.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is supported by Kulturrådet.
Monthly Report #4
Hello! My name is Mmabatho Thobejane. I am an independent curator, with a practice that centres black and decolonial feminisms. I am also the process leader and curator for Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, a three-year project undertaken by Grafikens Hus and supported by Kulturrådet. This monthly letter documents the project from my perspective and is one of the ways you, who are interested in the project, can follow its process.
March 2022
Read Monthly Report #4 here.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts Reading Circle #2
05 April 2022
18.00 – 20.00
Repslagargatan 15B, Stockholm
In connection with Grafikens Hus’s three-year project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, this reading circle centres collecting, collections and archives. Through the project, Grafikens Hus formulates a method for collecting that can guide our future collecting decisions. Through gathering to read we clear the space to critically reflect on collections and processes of their formation together. During the circles, we will read and discuss various texts on collecting, collections and archives.
For this session, we will be reading ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, a chapter in the book The Birth of the Museum: history, theory, politics by Tony Bennett. Copies of the text will be provided prior to the session.
The reading circles are facilitated by, process leader, Mmabatho Thobejane.
Register for the second reading circle via email at mmabatho.thobejane@grafikenshus.se. Arrangements to join via zoom can be made.
In collaboration with Kvinnohistoriska. Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is supported by Kulturrådet
LENA Film Evening with Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska
31 March 2022.
17:00 – 21:00
Klarabiografen, Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.
145 kr.
Book tickets here.
Archives, diaries, midwives and mad women – these are some of the themes that Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska will explore during three women’s history film evenings together with Klarabiografen at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in 2022.
Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska’s first evening at Klarabiografen is a collaboration with Grafikens Hus and the project Samlande tankar / Collecting Thoughts and will revolve around something that is close to our hearts: archives and archival material. How do we relate to archival material when we create art and film? How do you tell someone else’s story? This is something we, through film and conversation, will come on March 31st.
Evening’s program:
17.00-18.00 Monument: Monument: Save your own story for the future in Stockholm’s Women’s History Collection.
18.00-18.50 Conversation: How do we tell someone else’s story through archival material?
19.00-21.00 Film: LENA
In addition to the evening’s program, Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska will also be in the Culture Library on the same floor. At their own women’s history table, you will be able to browse (and loan out) specially selected book titles with a focus on women’s history and archives.
Monument
Monument is Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska’s platform for digital collections. Kvinnans Sak is a collection of objects and stories where both museums and the general public narrate women’s history, lives and experiences through things. Bring one thing. It can be, for example, a physical object, photograph or document, and we will photograph it for our collection and write down your women’s historical story. See all submitted stories at monument.kvinnohistoriska.se/samlingar/kvinnans-sak/
Samtal
How do we tell someone else’s story? Archives give people the chance to leave diaries, pictures, notes and contracts – fragments of their lives that we can cut and paste together into a story. But how do we relate to the material? How do we tell someone else’s story and how specific can you be? In a conversation between artists Sam Hultin and Francine Agbodjalou moderated by the journalist Rafaela Stålbalk Klose, we take a closer look at how you can work with archival material in art when you tell someone else’s, or your own, story.
Participants:
Sam Hultin is an artist who invites queer individuals and groups to activate parts of our queer history together. For the past three years, Sam has worked to make the archive of, trans pioneer, Eva-Lisa Bengtson accessible through city walks, performative readings and a commemoration. Keep an eye on Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska’s channels so as not to miss our city walks with Sam Hultin.
Francine Agbodjalou is a multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm, who in her art touches on topics such as lost memories and family archives.
Rafaela Stålbalk Klose is a journalist who writes and makes radio about themes related to identity, gender and culture – preferably from a social perspective. Rafaela’s great interest is to dig into archival material to depict stories concerning the fate of women and women’s history.
About the film: LENA
When Lena Nyman is admitted to Dramaten’s student school, she is already a celebrity in Sweden. From stage school and the crackling cultural life of the 60s, she suddenly becomes world-famous with the controversial Nyfiken films. When Lena dies in 2011, she leaves behind 17 paper bags full of secrets.
Through a unique and partly never before exposed material, a living portrait is painted. Through diaries, letters and photographs, we bring her close to life with all it entails:Ticket is valid for talks and film screenings, the collection is open to all Kulturhuset’s visitors. love, work, theater life, writing, alcohol and physicality. There is also the sharpened and resourceful political gaze that makes her so passionately relevant today.
Ticket valid for talks and film screenings, the collection is open to all Kulturhuset’s visitors.
The evening is arranged by Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska in collaboration with Grafikens hus, Klarabiografen and Kulturbiblioteket.
Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts Reading Circle #1
10 March 2022,
18:00 – 20:00
Stockholm Kvinnohistoriska Office (Repslagargatan 15B)
In connection with Grafikens Hus’s three-year project Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts, this reading circle centres collecting, collections and archives. Through the project, Grafikens Hus formulates a method for collecting that can guide our future collecting decisions. Through gathering to read we clear the space to critically reflect on collections and processes of their formation together. During the circles, we will read and discuss various texts on collecting, collections and archives.
For this first session, in connection with the upcoming collaborative event with Stockholms Kvinnohistoriska, we approach the topic of ‘subjectifying the archive’ and will read parts of ’Subjectifying the Archive: Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyen at the Museum of Ethnography’, an excerpt from the book ’Co-creation labs: illuminating guests, artists and new voices in European museums of world culture’. We will read this alongside Julietta Singh’s ’No Archive Will Restore You’. Copies of both texts will be provided.
The reading circles are facilitated by, process leader, Mmabatho Thobejane. For the first session, she will also give a brief introduction to the project.
Register for the first reading circle via email at mmabatho.thobejane@grafikenshus.se. Arrangements to join via zoom can be made.
In collaboration with Kvinnohistoriska. Samlande tankar/Collecting Thoughts is supported by Kulturrådet.