Collective reading of ” It Is Swedish Perfect” at The Swedish Embassy in London, 17 June 2010. Curated by Niklas Laustiola.
For the third and last term of my first year on the MFA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths College, London. We were given the task of using the concept of curation; used in the broadest of terms, to produce a creative ”exhibit” or presentation of our own or someone else´s work. I decided to work with the theme, that I liked to call, ”Lost in Translation”, about the quite general, but always relevant notion of the clash/meeting of different cultures. In relation to this theme I immidiately thought of Ulrika Gunnarsdotter’s piece from 2009 ”It is Swedish perfect”, a 24-day art project, where she and Serbian designer Magdalena Klasnja collaborated to make new folk costumes for three former Yugoslavians now living in Sweden. ”It is Swedish perfect” consists of a book with correspondence, notes, interviews and photographs and deals with the reality of collaboration, the trials and tribulations of creative process most importantly it deals with the question of identity, mainly in regards to national/cultural identity. For my curated presentation seminar I therefore thought that it would be fun for my group to make a journey onto Swedish soil i.e. The Swedish Embassy in London. Where we would have a collective reading, in silence, of Ulrika´s book. We would simply ”travel” to Sweden , ”view” a piecee of art by a Swedish artist and then return. It would be a shared action but everyone around the table would naturally have a completely different experience. An important aspect of the curation was also to have a Swedish ”fika” with kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) afterwards.
Niklas Laustiola, London, 22 June 2010.
Ulrika Gunnarsdotter 