Grafikens Hus presents an exhibition of Afaina de Jong’s public artwork An(Other) Vernacular in the entrance to Södertälje Science Park.

The exhibition presents an architectural model of the art pavilion and a textile with de Jong’s Södertälje-inspired pattern. During the exhibition period, we invite guests, reference groups and visitors to round-table discussions about how different stories can take place in public space, norm-critical perspectives on urban development and architecture.

Afaina de Jong, living in Amsterdam, is an architect, visual artist and cultural entrepreneur whose work is deeply connected to represent people and cultural movements that are not traditionally represented in architectural form. The project began in 2019 as part of the Public Art Agency Sweden initiative Kunskapsnav offentlig konst, led by Grafikens Hus in collaboration with Södertälje municipality.

In 2023, the project was planned to be inaugurated in Astraparken in Södertälje in the form of a multifunctional art pavilion. Through dialog and printmaking workshops with local associations and reference groups, the architect and artist Afaina de Jong worked together with Innavisions to create a Södertälje-inspired form and color language for the pavilion.

Telenovela: Hijacking and Autonomy in the Neo Baroque World is an ongoing research project by artist Carla Garlaschi. Through the appropriation of Latin American-labeled entertainment products, she aims to portray or address matters related to contemporary art. The project’s backbone is Garlaschi’s writing in the form of a romance novel, which includes a soap opera trailer, a dramatised artist statement, posters and banners.  The project also includes pop songwriting in collaboration with the reggaeton producer Talisto and the party installation Quinceañera curated by Olivia Berkowicz. In this way, formats that have reached a globalised character by embracing flexibility towards the market, may be stressed as syncretic grounds for confrontation.

The exhibition includes a laser print poster, vinyl with LED-lights and video work The Rise of the Latin American Artist, 2016.

Quinceañera: You’ll never bathe in the same river twice is an art event in the form of a sweet sixteen party, shaped by the transgressive power of cuteness. The event is an invitation to join a ritualised space in which, for a fleeting moment, we’ll be crossing a threshold. Traditionally the Quinceañera is a Latin American adolescent rite of passage – perhaps even a right to passage – which suspends an established order, opening up for self-determination. During this liminal period, even social hierarchies seem blurry.

The party is a space for togetherness, where prior to the event itself, the scenographic installation is created during an open workshop in Galleri Mejan, together with the artist Carla Garlaschi and the curator Olivia Berkowicz. Making use of basic handicraft materials, the party props are directed towards the actualisation of an imaginary coming of age party. Stockholm-based reggaeton artist Talisto and Carla Garlaschi open the party.

With Ferrara Residency 2017 resina invited a group of artists to take part in a research period in Ferrara in Italy, offering them a studio space at Studio Carmelino and inviting them to join and contribute to a program of discussions, presentations and reading groups.

During Ferrara Residency, the participants had the chance to discover the historical and cultural heritage of Ferrara and its surroundings, to visit exhibitions and cultural spaces in the region, and to engage in a dialogue with local artists, institutions and communities.

The residency program originated from reflections on the role of artists, curators and cultural producers in today’s society, functioning within an art system that reproduces itself through low-paid or unpaid work. Within this precarious context, what does it mean to curate an artistic project and how to do so “with care”?

Throughout the program of readings, visits and talks, we reflected on the need to think together through themes such as work, slowness, vulnerability, the importance of processes of collaboration and modalities of working together in order to provide an alternative to the exhaustion, anxiety and individualism that we experience today under networked capitalism.

As a culmination of the residency, from the 27th of September to the 4th of October 2017, Galleria del Carbone and GATE/Porta hosted the exhibition A Bath of Self Esteem showcasing the research developed by the artists during the previous weeks.

With Ferrara Residency 2018 resina invited five artists of interdisciplinary visual and sonic practices who have explored various facets of Ferrara’s history through their own work, as well as through events and convivial activities. The invited artists were Ruth Angel Edwards, Emilia Beatriz, Henry Bradley, Joe Campbell, Callum Hill and Blue Maignien.

The residency program is grounded in collaborative practices of learning such as reading groups, feedback sessions, collective meals and other convivial activities, as forms o deceleration and care-taking within the context of art making.

Through a series of events entitled Convivium, we have discussed various political, economic and emotional structures which support or limit artistic work in today’ neoliberal societies. These sessions have been moments in which the artists have reflected on various alternative modalities of cohabitation, through the prism of the Etruscan heritage at the National Archaeological Museum in Ferrara, as well as with Carola Peverati, a feminist activist who was part of the 1970s social movement Wages for Housework.

The residency culminated with an exhibition at Porta degli Angeli, a sharing of the artists’ work-in-progress, titled A Fluid Haze: Thought-Forms from  Ferrara Residency.