What happens when we include artistic investigation as one of the core competencies in the remediation of a contaminated site?
Remediation work usually begins by consulting experts: soil scientists, geologists, and so on. But what if we place artists as part of this expert group? What might art uncover? And how do these discoveries change the very act of cleaning up? This seminar brings together artistic participants from the project DETOX – Clean it up! with artists, curators, and thinkers who have worked on related projects.
Watch a recording of the seminar here!
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Over the past three years, Rejmyre Art Lab’s Centre for Peripheral Studies has been working on the artistic research project DETOX – Clean it up! Together with a group of Swedish and Nordic artists, we investigated the contaminated ground beneath our feet in Rejmyre. We began by negotiating our position as official members of the municipal working group tasked with investigating, developing, and implementing a plan to “clean up” this polluted site.
The land around the glassworks contains pockets of concentrated lead, cadmium, and arsenic—by-products of Rejmyre’s 200-year glass industry—that are now recognized as toxic substances. When the municipality took over the land from the glassworks in 2015, during one of the many bankruptcy proceedings, the historical industrial waste was also transferred—from the company owners to become a public responsibility. We are now stewards of a major environmental problem, which the region has deemed so toxic that it must be remediated.
“One of the propositions of artistic research is a repositioning of the artist’s role in society, as someone who, by creating artworks, initiates a process of public reflection and consideration of the complexities of the present. The core of this project is to think about the act of ‘cleaning up’ itself. We were interested in the relationship between this project—namely the municipality’s task of cleaning up toxic waste behind the factory after the company abandoned the site—and the ways in which artists and artworks are often called in to ‘clean up’ after destructive capitalist activities. If the direction in this instrumentalized understanding of art’s work is ‘up,’ what would it mean to answer the call to clean ‘sideways’? We approach what has been called ‘waste’ as ‘valuable material.’ Engaging as artists in the remediation process allows us to capture this latent socio-poetic value. To ‘clean sideways,’ we must consider the potential of waste as a resource that enables us to reflect on who we were, who we are, and who we might become.” – Daniel Peltz, Research Director, Rejmyre Art Lab’s Centre for Peripheral Studies
SEMINAR SCHEDULE
Part 1: DETOX – Clean it up!
13.00–13.15 – Introduction to Detox – Clean it up! by Daniel Peltz, Research Director at Rejmyre Art Lab’s Centre for Peripheral Studies
13.15–13.30 – Cecilia Jonsson (NL/SE), artist, presents her work The Forbidden Garden, carried out in Rejmyre 2019–2020
13.30–13.45 – Frida Hållander (SE), artist and PhD candidate, presents her work The Lung of the Factory, carried out in Rejmyre 2018–2019
13.45–14.00 – Daniel Peltz (SE/US), artist and professor in Site and Situation Specific Practices, Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, presents his work A Refuge in Rejmyre
Break – 10 min
14.10–14.25 – HarrieLiveart (FI), artist duo Meri Linna & Saija Kassinen, presents their work Psyche of the Land, carried out in Rejmyre 2018–2019
14.25–14.40 – Sissi Westerberg, artist and co-founder of Rejmyre Art Lab, gives a brief overview of participants and projects from the three-year research
14.40–15.10 – Group discussions / conversations
Break – 5 min
Part 2: Exploring Kinships
15.15–15.35 – Vytautas Michelkevicius, curator, associate professor of photography and media art at Vilnius Academy of Arts and former artistic director of Nida Art Colony, discusses Nida’s work in relation to Detox – Clean it up!
15.35–15.55 – Per Nilsson, archaeologist and researcher at Östergötlands Museum, discusses waste as a cultural resource
Break – 5 min
16.00–16.20 – Caroline Mårtensson, environmental artist, discusses her practice
Part 3: Conclusion
16.20–16.45 – Taru Elfving, curator and writer, artistic director for CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago, research affiliate at Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London, respondent
The seminar is produced in collaboration with Konstfrämjandet.
Funders: Swedish Arts Council, Nordic Culture Fund, Kulturkontakt Nord, Finspång Municipality