Join Johanna Hedva for a presentation and discussion on their new book, Minerva: The Miscarriage of the Brain. The event is organised as part of the exhibition A Careful Strike* at Mint. (Due to the current pandemic the exhibition has been postponed until fall 2021).

Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain collects a decade of work from artist, musician, and author of On Hell, Johanna Hedva. In plays, performances, an encyclopaedia, essays, autohagiography, hypnagogic, and hypnopompic poems – in texts whose bodies drift and delight in form – Minerva tunnels into mysticism, madness, motherhood, and magic. Minerva gets dirty with the mess of gender and genius. She does the labour of sleep and dreams. She odysseys through Los Angeles, shapeshifting in stygian night and waking up to wail in the light.

Please join us for a public walk with banners produced by Bella Rune and students from Konstfack University of Arts Craft and Design. We will walk from Konstfack to ABF Stockholm Sveavägen 41. During the walk scholar and researcher Margareta Ståhl will join us for a conversation about the project and the history and aesthetics for the workers movement.

Please respect social distancing measures, do not join the walk if you are sick or have any symptoms and walk with a two-meter distance.

Register: info@m-i-n-t.se.

Online event! Stream live on facebook or our website

Join artists Emma Dominguez, Macarena Dusant, Sonia Sagan and Sarasvati Shrestha for a discussion around their collective approach to addressing the lived detrimental effects of work and the inequality of access to care within the Swedish welfare system framed around their mother’s experience. The study session reflects on their current exhibition Mami: Ama: Mödrar at Botkryka Konsthall and artistic strategies that draw on resources within the art field to build infrastructures that seek to not only critique but work to transform the violent structures of work and the gendered and racialised work injuries they produce. We will consider how these methods also seek to refuse the unhealthy (re)production of culture to resonate beyond the confines of the art institution and its public.

The event will take place in English.

The event forms part of the Bodies of Care study sessions that explores practices that reflect and resist the current expansion of commercialized, individualized and outsourced care and is in collaboration with Botkyrka Konsthall.

This is the fifth in a series of conversations that precedes the exhibition A Careful Strike* at Mint opening on the 3rd of December.
*Precarias a la deriva, 2005

Follow the conversation at www.m-i-n-t.se/en-omsorgsfull-strejk/

During the past years, the Naples port has been affected by harsh labour conflicts. Employees have been fired on unclear grounds and the port businesses are unwilling to negotiate with the union. In Genova, dockworkers have gone on strikes to block ships with weapons cargo destined for Jemen. When the Black Lives Matter movement grew in the USA hundreds of dockworkers went on strike in Portland. In Sweden, the Swedish Dockworkers Union struggle has become significant in the rapid restructuring of the power relations on the Swedish labour market. What does the conjunction between political strikes and labour related strikes entail today?

This evening departs from a series of reports from different contemporary struggles that reflect the conditions to document and establish one’s public narrative. Based on this aspect, which historical continuities with earlier movements can we see in today’s struggles?

Reports by:

Papis Ndiaye, S.I. Cobas Italy

Martin Berg, chairman of the Swedish Dockworkers Union

Alessandra Mincone, journalist at Napoli Monitor

Mathias Wåg, activist and writer

Moderated by Julia Lindblom, journalist at Arbetaren and Benj Gerdes, artist and filmmaker.

The struggle over history is the struggle for life, recognition and reparation. The conditions for an independent historical narrative are a recurring issue within the history of different movements. Which narratives are given a voice, which are suppressed? How is the ongoing struggle over history expressed today in different contexts? Participants: Judith Kiros, Stefano Harney och Fred Moten.

Follow the conversation online via Mint’s facebook page

Welcome to a conversation about the condition for artistic production, solidarity and strike in the moment of the uprisings in Belarus with Problem Collective (Minsk) as part of the exhibition A Careful Strike*.

The discussion will happen online: link and on-site at Mint, ABF Stockholm.

Participants:

Olia Sosnovskaya (artist and researcher, member of the Problem Collective)

Anna Bredava (LGBTQ+ activist, organiser of DOTYK Queer festival)

Andrei Karpeka (activist, co-founder of Minsk Urban Platform)

Nicolai Spesivtsev (artist and computer scientist, member of eeefff group and Work Hard Play Hard working group)

Anmälan: https://simplesignup.se/event/172951
Facebookevent

A public conversation on the possibility of struggle and resistance within health and care work. The corona pandemic has made the vulnerability of society even more evident as a consequence of decades of neoliberal reforms. How can care rather than economic principles become the primary organizing principle for societies? In collaboration with Feministiskt Forum. Participants: Roya Hakimnia, Pamela Otarola, Yolanda Aurora Bohm Ramirez and Mani Shutzberg.

The artistic project: The factory girls – The wilful textile worker organize an exhibition and  conference at Mint Art Gallery in the ABF building in Stockholm. The conference wants to  highlight and discuss the conditions, knowledge and resistance of women in the textile and home  industry; their willingness and self-will, which is expressed in organization, professional pride and  strategies. During the week, parts of the play Fabriksflickorna – makten och härligheten [The  Factory Girls – The Power and Glory] are reactivated, in an exhibition by Åsa Norman (Sweden)  textile artist, and Frida Hållander (Sweden) PhD, craft artist. The play premiered in Skellefteå  under the direction of Suzanne Osten and Margareta Garpe in 1980.

In the exhibition, Norman and Hållander show parts of the multi-year artistic project The Factory  girls – The Willful Textile Worker through material and crafts investigations – as well as archive  material and sound. Artists and researchers are invited to the conference. They will hold  workshops and presentations to create a Nordic context for an in-depth discussion on textile  production and the home industry.

The project is carried out with support from the Nordic Culture Fund, The Swedish Arts Grants  Committee, the Helge Ax:son Johnssons stiftelse and Byggnads kulturstipendium. The exhibition  och conference is part of Stockholm Craft Week 2020.

Conference Week Program:

The conference is taking place in the ABF-house at Sveavägen 41 in Stockholm. The lectures is in  different lecture-halls (see schedule). The lectures will be available to follow online via Zoom and  we take a limited number of people in the audience. Pre-registration for all presentations are via  email to Åsa Norman:

asanorman@gmail.com

Wednesday September 30

The exhibition opens! Opening hours: 16.00-20.00.

Thursday October 1 Conference day 1, all lectures are in Katasalen at the first floor in ABF huset

The exhibition is open 12:00-18:00

10:00-11:30 Introductory presentation and lecture by Åsa Norman (Sweden) textile artist and  Frida Hållander (Sweden) PhD, craft artist, presents the ongoing artistic project Factory girls –  The Willful Textile Workers. Tjia Torpe (Sweden) educator and producer will tell about the play  Fabriksflickorna – makten och härligheten [The Factory Girls – The Power and Glory]. Language:  Swedish.

13:00-14:30 Leena Enbom (Finland) doctoral researcher in Social and Economic History in the  University of Helsinki. The lecture will shed light on the variations of home industries that  appeared as part of the secondary labour market in the urbanizing Finland from the late 19^th century until the 1960s. Additionally, the lecture will discuss the disciplinary functions of the  workhouse and relief work institutions based on the obligation to perform crafts and sewing tasks.  Language: English.

15.00-16:30 Lecture with Malin Nilsson (Sweden) PhD Economic History, researcher at the  Department of Economic History at Lund University. She will present her dissertation Taking work  home: Labor dynamics of women industrial homeworkers in Sweden during the second industrial  revolution (2015). Nilsson’s talk will also focus on how women’s commercial home based textile  production became a highly politicized topic in Europe in the late 19^th century. Language:  Swedish.

Friday October 2 Conference day 2, all lectures are in Katasalen at the first floor in ABF-huset The exhibition is open 12:00-18:00 

10:00-11:30 Sushmita Preetha (Bangladesh) journalist, writer and researcher, together with Karin  Elfving (Sweden) journalist and ethnologist. The lecture will be based on testimonies from textile  workers in Bangladesh were it is describe how their rights are constantly violated, also how  Covid-19 has pushed these workers into further difficulties. Preetha and Elfving will also include  the response from some of the Swedish brands. Language: English.

13:00-14:30 Lecture with Franz Petter Schmidt (Norway) Associate Professor of Textile Art at  KhiO – Oslo School of Fine Arts, textile artist and artistic researcher. Schmidt will present his  artistic dissertation project Reflection, Weaving Fabrics for Suits (2018), which touches on the  textile factory Sjølingstad Woolen Mill in Norway, and textile industry production through feeling,  longing, belonging, memory, pride and being queer. He will also present an ongoing project on a  diary written from 1925 to 1942 by the weaver Malli Berge. Language: Norwegian.

15:00-16:30 Emelie Röndahl (Sweden) PhD student at HDK – Gothenburg University in the Arts,  presents her ongoing artistic dissertation project “Crying Pixels: a practitioner’s narrative through  woven rya – aspects of time in hand made practice”. Language: Swedish.

Saturday October 3 Conference day 3, all lectures are in Hjärtat at the entrance level at ABF huset

The exhibition is open 12:00-18:00 

11:00-12:30 Munish Wadhia (Sweden) artist, will present his ongoing work on the match industry  Jönköping’s Match Factory AB. Wadhia will also present his work “Signs taken for wonders” in  which he returns to the images and objects that surrounded him during his childhood, but with a  decolonial gaze that questions their given meanings, here he refers to the experience from  different textile factories. Language: English.

13:00-14:00 Marie Hållander (Sweden) freelance poet and lecturer at Södertörn University.  Hållander will present the literary project “Among the girls and machines of the textile dust”  where she starts from textile stories and archives from Sjuhärad in Västergötland. Language:  Swedish.

14:00-14:30 Nino Mick (Sweden) poet and writer, they will read an adapted version of a novel in  progress that delas about Berta Bäckman (b. 1860) and other factory worker that works in a match  factory in Tidaholm. The historical novel moves on two times, 1875 – the time of the great fire in  the factory where 50 girls perished, 1909 – the Swedish general strike. Language: Swedish.

15:00-17:00 Go-slow action, along Sveavägen, start outside the ABF-house, public performance  led by Frida Hållander & Åsa Norman.

Sunday October 4

The exhibition is open 12:00-16:00 

With generous support from Konstnärsnämnden, Nordisk kulturfond, Helge Ax:son Johnssons stiftelse and Byggnads kulturstipendium in collaboration with Iaspis.

Illustration: Hanna Stenman

Welcome to an evening of lectures and presentations arranged by the independent research group Agentur, on Thursday, September 17, 2020, 5 pm. Please note that the number of seats is very limited! RSVP vital!

History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934)
A report by Agentur, within the framework of the research project The Aesthetics of the Popular Fronts.

On February 12, 1934, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Paris, to protest against the advances of fascism. A few days earlier, extreme right and royalist organisations had held a large manifestation in the city, which had deteriorated into deadly riots and an improvised coup attempt. The threat was real: European fascism was gathering its forces. At the same time, the opposition was hopelessly fragmented. Liberals, social democrats, and communists were set violently against each other. Would their separate demonstrations collide in new street fights, in evidence of the paralysis of the opposition?

In March of the same year, the author Marc Bernard published his account of the events of those days, The Workers’ Days of February 9 and 12. In this short book – the mythical and mythologizing foundational text of Popular Front literature – Bernard documents what happened then, in careful detail. The demonstrations did not collide, they were united into one. The opposition set their differences aside in favor of a united front against a common enemy. The French Popular Front was created, and its model soon spread to other countries and continents. A chapter was opened in the history of anti-fascist organization.

History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934) takes its cue from Bernard’s text, which is now for the first time published in Swedish translation. It is a text that poses questions to the present: Is it still possible to think unity in resistance as a political and aesthetic principle? Is there still a progressive tradition that we can draw upon, and that stretches back to the moment of the popular fronts? If so, what continuities can we invoke? What discontinuities must we assert? With readings, presentations, artistic contributions, and critical commentaries by Emily Fahlén, Jörgen Gassilewski, Martin Högström, Ingela Johansson, Emma Kihl, Samuel Richter, Kim West, and Ellen Wettmark, we invite to common reflection regarding a central event in the cultural history of anti-fascism.

History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934) initiates a series of reports produced by the independent research group Agentur, within the framework of the research project The Aesthetics of the Popular Fronts. The reports take the form of public events, arranged at different places and institutions in Sweden and abroad during the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021; videos based on documentation of the events, directed by Agentur, and published on digital platforms; and printed publications, produced in collaboration with a number of Swedish and international publishing houses, platforms, and magazines.

The event History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934) – an evening with readings, presentations, critical commentaries, and discussions – takes place on Thursday September 17, 2020, 5–8 pm, at the art center Mint, located at the Workers’ Education Association (ABF), Sveavägen 41, Stockholm, Sweden. There is a very limited number of open seats for this event. RSVP to info@agentur.ooo (first come first served). Please note that the event will be documented on video. Language: Swedish. Welcome!

The video History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934), based on documentation of the event, as well as on specifically commissioned short films and presentations, will be published on October 15 at m-i-n-t.se and agentur.ooo. Tune in!

The publication History Is Not Over (February 12, 1934) will be published in the fall. The volume will contain Marc Bernard’s book in Swedish translation, together with essays and artworks based on the contributions to the event and the video. A joyful foray into the intellectual landscape of deep anachronism!

Thanks to Fabrique éditions, Stella Magliani-Belkacem, Michele Masucci, Benjamin Thorel, and our collaborating partners.

Coming reports

Must Be Written Later: Titanic October 15 / online November 8 / Chateaux in November.

Culture House Culture House Culture House: Cyklopen October 30 / online November 22 / Stockholmstidningen in December.

To Philosophize With Labor: Biskops Arnö week 47 / Tydningen in January.
For more information, see here.

About Agentur

Agentur is an independent research group for critical cultural production, based in Stockholm. Committed to an ideal of social equality, it seeks to invent new forms, methods, models, and functions for progressive cultural work in a new, postdigital public sphere and an increasingly precarious labor market. Agentur operates as a multidisciplinary critique bureau. It conducts longterm research projects on issues of public interest in a polarized and fragmented present. Among Agentur’s participants there are poets, artists, critics, researchers, designers, and public servants. In 2020–21, Agentur conducts the research project The Aesthetics of the Popular Fronts.

About The Aesthetics of the Popular Fronts

“Popular Fronts” was the common name of the coalitions of liberal, social democrat, and communist parties that were formed in several countries during the 1930s, in order to establish united fronts against the rise of fascism. Artists and authors, filmmakers and journalists, cultural workers and politicians mobilized for the purpose. The research project The Aesthetics of the Popular Fronts is based on detailed studies of artworks they created, texts they wrote, projects they realized. The aim is to draw up a provisional map of a historical, cultural, and social situation, in order then to ask if that history can still be our history. Is there a tradition of anti-fascist unity politics that stretches back to the moment of the Popular Fronts, with which we may still be able to identify? The immediate background to the project is the rise of the new far right in Sweden, Europe, and globally today. It poses the question of how, at what levels, and with what means we can in the most effective way counteract that rise culturally and politically.

The project is supported by Kulturbryggan.

Combined digital & physical screening on September 2th, 7PM CEST

Mint is opening this years FILMFORM RE:VIEW, and has selected works from the Filmform collection that, from different perspectives, reveal the shadow as position and strategy. FILMFORM RE:VIEW is the format where external professionals and institutions from spheres of culture or research are invited to botanize in the collection. Starting off from their specific areas of interest and questions a film programme is curated and thereafter presented as an open screening at Filmform.

This programme is shown in a limited screening format at Filmform in Svarvargatan and simultaneously streamed live at the Filmform website: https://www.filmform.com/calendar/filmform-review-mint/

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the current pandemic special restrictions apply for those who wish to attend the physical screening. Admission is reduced to a maximum of 12 people. The ticket price is 40 kr. You book a ticket by RSVPing to info@filmform.com after which you will receive information about the different payment options and confirmation. First come, first served. We urge those who experience even the slightest symptoms to stay at home and enjoy the live streamed version of the screening.

The screening is arranged with support from Stockholms Stad. Filmform is supported by the Ministry of Culture through the Arts Grants Committee and the Swedish Arts Council.

Welcome to an evening with performances, poetry and bar at Konsthall C! During the evening participating artist Armin Lorenz Gerold (Berlin) will perform under his alias wirefoxterrier, and writer Eli Levén (Stockholm) will read from his upcoming book, to be published by Norstedts in August. This event marks the final weekend of this exhibition.

The performance starts 7:30

wirefoxterrier started as an online screen name created by Berlin based artist Armin Lorenz Gerold releasing sentimental song sketches and mixtapes into the tumblr/soundcloud pop ecosystem. His 2018 release ’Sex (play and being played), initially part of his self-released ‚fan-fiction‘ series ‚Radio Prishtina‘ became an almost coincidental feature on the viral TV show SKAM. Examining how virality shapes current writing, sounds and production methods, wirefoxterrier will perform a few songs of his upcoming first extended play Looking (tbr spring 2020) at Konsthall C.
https://soundcloud.com/wirefoxterrier

Eli Levén is a novelist and screenwriter. His debut “Du är rötterna som sover vid mina fötter och håller jorden på plats” was adapted for film by Eli as “Something Must Break” and directed by Ester Martin Bergsmark. The duo also made the hybrid documentary “She Male Snails” together. In August 2020 Eli’s new novel will be published by Norstedts. An adaptation by the novel, to be directed by Eli, is currently under development.

‘The physical world was still there’
The physical world was still there but this exhibition turns its back on it. From a close perspective sound, video, painting and objects share the joy and fear of temporal ecstasy, rush, heat and mental confusion. When someone puts their hands on your body and your blood vessels seem to merge, when the last drink of the sun blurs your mind, when time seems so thick you lose any concept of that which was and will be, when the night is in motion.

Curated by Emily Fahlén and Asrin Haidari (Mint).

Free entry.

In collaboration with ABF.

Welcome to the release of a new issue of Found Review!

The soon-to-be released 7 # Lost Spring 2019 Issue – A Threefold Critique of Tax Deductions Rut and Rot contains a series of reviews devoted to Rut- och Rot-avdragen: the tax deductions that subsidize domestic services (mainly cleaning and reconstruction) for the middle and upper classes of Swedish society. The issue highlights three problematic aspects of the deductions: an increased division of labor, a continuous commodification of everyday life, and a regressive distribution of wealth.

The issue also includes reviews of works by Cady Noland, Cia Rinne, and Bella Batistini (already up for view!)

Tuesday 18 February 18.00-20.00
Mint, Sveavägen 41

18.30 The Maids by Jean Genet: reading of excerpt
18.45 Found Review editor Karl Lydén in conversation
with Lina Rydén Reynols

(Reading and conversation in Swedish)

Found Review 7 # Lost Spring 2019 Issue includes contributions by Nina Canell and Robin Watkins, Johanna Gustafsson-Fürst, Anna Hallberg, Runo Lagomarsino, and Filip Lindberg.

Found Review is a publication for art criticism that uses only found material.

https://foundreview.com/

In this discussion the premises for resistance are investigated through an exploration of current and past movements. In a time where the social gaps are widening and segregation is destroying the city, critical reflections are needed on how current challenges are connected to historical processes, if we are to embark on a democratised future. With Nazem Tahvilzadeh, researcher of urban and regional studies at KTH, Hedvig Wiezell, operations manager at Folkets Husby and design historian Christina Zetterlund.