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The event will start with Arrival of the Trees, a performance by the trio. The performance wishes to address tiny, delicate, almost invisible acts of care, happening all the time inside a family, a group of friends, the inhabitants of a quartier. After the performance finger food and refreshments will be offered and people is invited to stay and mingle.
The artists are collaborating with Art Residence Botkyrka and Extension Art space, and with this event they wish to get to know the local art community and also the people living in the quartier. The event is open to families and to participate you don't need to speak Swedish or English language.

Photo: ©Anneli Bäckman

Photo: ©Anneli Bäckman

Photo: ©Anneli Bäckman

Photo: ©Anneli Bäckman

How can art be a therapeutic trajectory for artists and a powerful tool for improving our lives within the context of our suffering world? Our world has agonizing wars, pandemics, economic vulnerabilities and ecosystem failures. Yet, do we still believe art can create change when feelings of despair dominate our thoughts? Can we dare to think of our inner power as a form of action against this global collapse?

Since 2017, I have curated a series of projects on art as therapy. The artists in these projects create art as a reflection of their experiences. They challenge themselves and others by producing artwork on healing that evokes a life worth living. When first started curating the concept of art as therapeutic, the world had not yet faced the universal pain of the pandemic. Then I revisited this concept during the pandemic to show artists working during a time of isolation, separation, and death. So, I curated their artwork as a mobile exhibition for elderly in-home care. The show was presented inside a box. The idea was to provide positive energy through art.

The mobile exhibition motivated a new project – Inside, I hide my Happiness – using boxes to challenge new thoughts about the optimistic energy exchange between artists and viewers.

The artists in the project explore the idea of Happiness—the highest purpose of individuals—in reference to Aristotle's quotation, "Happiness depends upon ourselves."

Each artist uses the box as a format to create and contain their personal story. In this sense, the box acts as a symbolic body. It embraces an inner world that holds, hides, and reflects life's pain, hope, and Happiness.

he project seeks to provide an encounter with Happiness by presenting artworks as magical boxes, each filled with different stories. The boxes reveal a sense of how Happiness varies between individuals and how the desires for happiness change over time. The resulting exhibition affirms the expression of Happiness within a small intimate space within a larger public space.

Can artists provide a glimpse into an inner world that sparks a ray of Happiness, which evolves into a more positive perspective on life?
When we speak about art and Happiness, does a "beautiful" work evoke Happiness, or does Happiness evolve through art that challenges our mind in more profound directions?
Can art generate thoughts and energy in meaningful ways to create a better world?

The richness of our surroundings have inspired artists throughout history to create artwork about the natural world, the city environment, and the human condition. Art invites us to see the beauty and complexity of our places, listen to the stories of others, and tackle the problems and cases within our world. The artists featured in this exhibition have observed and created a variety of works that capture their experiences and interests in their surroundings. Their diverse work focuses on nature—climate change and its impact on our world—centralizes on architecture—the atmosphere of the city and its influence on our lives—searches into human behaviour—our relationships with each other and with our vast world.

The world is changing fast. Many aspects of our reality that we took for granted only a few years ago can no longer be counted on. The landscape of industry, politics and technology is moving in previously unimaginable directions.

In the performance, Huttner looks at what happens to friendship in the wake of the changes that we are living through.

He will use text, sound and moving images to reflect on friendship. He invites the audience to ponder how love expresses itself in their relationship with their friends. Could this affection be the foundation for inspiring hope in our hearts? Does friendship demand honesty? What happens to friends when they no longer share the same values? These are some of the questions that the performance raises.

* Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. The term comes from the 1944 film called “Gaslight” which stars Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

The performance is within the framework of “You Are Not A Guest”

The project's title borrows from the Arabic saying: "You are not a guest" that a host uses to comfort a guest; it's an invitation to feel as a part of the family that resembles the European saying "feel like at Home". The essence of hospitality is giving, taking care of your guests, getting together and showing solidarity; The host offers the guest a (home) where they can communicate, understand each other and get together.

Is hospitality a social way to support each other? Isn't the host of today might be the guest of tomorrow? At a time when the world is suffering from the post-pandemic, facing an economic crisis, inflation, climate change, conflict and wars. How do cultural workers resist discrimination, injustice, climate change and other crises? Can we work for peace and reconciliation to continue living together and learning from each other?

The project invites seven artists to reflect upon the concept of hospitality as a way to meet and understand different cultures.

”There is a lack of strategic planning, insufficient follow-up and evaluation. We want to ensure that the employee can, and wants to, perform their
“We now apply a holistic approach and prepare our operations. We are an organisation with a long history. Our work is goal-oriented. We keep looking ahead. Innovation and development are important to us.”

PUSH / PULL is a method and an ongoing process. The method is to be put under the influence of each other. A collective brain.

Two visual artists and two authors in an associatively exploring encounter. At different occasions the work is published as drafts. The work will turn into a publication.

The project's title borrows from the Arabic saying: "you are not a guest" that a host uses to comfort a guest; it's an invitation to feel as a part of the family that resembles the European saying "feel like at Home". The essence of hospitality is giving, taking care of your guests, getting together and showing solidarity; The host offers the guest a (home) where they can communicate, understand each other and get together.

Is hospitality a social way to support each other? Isn't the host of today might be the guest of tomorrow? At a time when the world is suffering from the post-pandemic, facing an economic crisis, inflation, climate change, conflict and wars. How do cultural workers resist discrimination, injustice, climate change and other crises? Can we work for peace and reconciliation to continue living together and learning from each other?

The project invites seven artists to reflect upon the concept of hospitality as a way to meet and understand different cultures.

The work of the artist Ebba Bohlin in this exhibition is inspired by her residency in Winnipeg, Canada. Bohlin's research focused on the Great Plains of North America, a region with a rich and complex history affected by human activities during the past two centuries. Due to substantial industrial and agricultural expansions, barely 1% of the region's original grasslands survive today. The subsequent erosion, monoculture, and eutrophication have dramatically influenced the ecosystem and the lives of the people who call this region home.

Despite this significant alteration, a connection to the natural world and its thriving life may survive. Humans have a natural capacity to identify with and sympathize with the more than human, relying on memories and experiences that extend well beyond their lifetimes. There´s a possibility in all humans to recognize the natural world in themselves, a memory that is not our own individual one, but derives from experiences made long before this lifetime.

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