The day I recieved the award for my entry for the community project ‘ Wall of Resistance’ at Brent Town Hall thoughts around the use of art started again. The council website states: ‘ Brent’s community have helped to create a wall of resistance made up of postcard sized images based on the theme stand up to Hatred. The aim of this project was to urge everyone to look at their behaviour towards others, to understand how hate is directed against different minorities in Britain today and to explore how we can help make our communities stronger and safer’ ( http://www.brent.gov.uk/arts.nsf/Festivals/LBB-21 accessed 30/01/09)

The Wall of Resistance project seems to me a most positive, inclusive and humanistic act - that through images, music, poetry and football( !) and on that day, citizens of many faiths and ethnicity gathered to honour the victims of not only the Holocaust, but of all - genocide. I know from my master’s degree research in graphic arts and the visual language of protest, that the 20th century stands as the tragic record holder of more systematically implemented genocides of any centuries. Has techonological advances made us more savage? Yet can socially engaged art create intercommunity dialogue and be a reminder of that food, shelter and freedom belong to us all?

Stefano’s work continues to grow. The space will soon be over-run with these figures.

Emir Krajisnik works in stone, video and print. When we last met in Malmo, Emir collected words from us, that I am not sure where they are going. My words were ‘nice girl dies’ and so she does… or maybe she ’soon’ escapes from the tower.

We decided to consider carefully the room where the work will be shown. We want the space to be activated, to be staged as an experience for the accidental visitor. One of the aims for the show is for it to function as a dialogue- exploring ours and the audience’s relation to the image. ‘Guide words’ will be addded to the walls- in order to further emphasise the aspect of the dialogue.
Gallery Valfisken is more than a chocolate-box gallery. It is a community oriented space with an adjacent library and cafe. Valfisken is placed in the center of Simrishamn, near the coast in Southern Sweden.

Torsten Lilja , Founder of the Lilja Foundation which holds the world’s most foremost collection of Christo’s prints as well early work by pop artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns and Lichtenstein.

Torsten first came in to contact with the pop artists as their printmaking began to develop made possible by their collaboration with and support by master printer Tyler, and print studios such as Tamarind and Atelier 17. Through working closely with the highly skilled and ‘dare devil’ printers such as Tyler, techniques were experimental and the prints became layered, complex and monumental . The master printers pushed the artists, especially Rauschenberg to expand creative and technical boundaries. According to Lilja, the relationship between the artist and the printer was symbiotic – the master printer being the ‘shadow in the ink.’
At this level, the the shared and collaborative nature of the print studio, transformation became evident.

7 january 2009

We exchange images of our work as it develops- connecting across Sweden , England and wherever Stefano might be, talking in shapes and lines.

For more information , see: www.simrishamn.se/sv/kultur_fritid/galleri_valfisken

Walking14 January 2009
Exploring directions and how to respond to the room.

Magical usefulness is a group show with the three artist- printmakers and sculptors Stefano Beccari, Emir Krajisnik and myself in Southern Sweden’s Simrishamn council’s cultural centre Galleri Valfisken. The show opens 23 of May 2009 and explores, the role of art in daily life. Focused on art as dialogue , I will post images of our work as the form of the show thorugh the prints,the sculptures, and the videos develop between the artist and the council. This show- is for all of us.
Let us reconnect with wonder.