ABUNDANCE
ATTENTION ATTENTION
An installation and collaborative work by
Christina Göthesson, Helena Norell, Katarzyna Piorek, Mariana Ekner and Nina Wedberg Thulin.
In ATTENTION ATTENTION different voices form a choir approaching the subject of abundance in our time of
overconsumption. We want to stop time and preserve our existence on earth. Just one minute left – a pivotal
moment!? The clock strikes with the same firmness as the rhythm of the metronome. A mirror reflecting our
faces and silhouettes trapped in the cages of our needs and consumption.
Another voice reflects on the origin of life as we know based on Carbo number 6 in cages with wooden
objects and carbon powder. A bird rising, made in copper, one of the so-called coin-metals, and podium
wood. A silhouette of a man in one of the cages, burnt newspaper based on firewood from Nov.9th, 1989
during the fall of the Berlin Wall. In clear contrast to the elements of life come golden chains, shoes,
champagne, and fur in cages for mink and other animals used in the fur industry.
Our desires and the dirty work a four-minute video and a meditative reflection on abundance for some, desires
and greed requires dirty low paid and sometimes dangerous work for others.
Shut-in, shut out. Cages with barbed wire. The wire creates sharp fencing or protection from what comes from
outside. Cages that capture and conserve. Thoughts about breeding, confinement, exclusion, control,
transparency. ATTENTION can be written with the help of wire or in sugar cubes as the words HERE AND
NOW. ATTENTION ATTENTION HERE AND NOW repeated by the Mynahbirds on the fictive island of Pala – a
land far far away. A utopia, reality, or dream? Something we all long for. From the book Island by Aldous
Huxley.
The idea of using cages as an element for the installation came from learning about mink farming in Jylland,
and what happened in connection with the pandemic 2020/2021.
Christina Göthesson: initiator, barbed wire c.gothesson@gmail.com
Helena Norell: video, gold, champagne helena_norell@hotmail.com
Katarzyna Piorek: mirrors, clocks, metronome kasiapiorek@gmail.com
Mariana Ekner: bird sculpture, wood, burnt paper mariana.ekner@gmail.com
Nina Wedberg Thulin: title, letters in sugarcubes nsw.thulin@gmail.com
Studio 44,
Juxtapose Art Fair
16 – 23 augusti 2021
Laëtitia Deschamps
Mariana Ekner
Rikard Fåhraeus
Carolina Hindsjö
Mats Landström
Elena (Kolenka) Rammi
Christina Göthesson
Monika Masser
Helena Norell
Katarzyna Piorek
Masoud Shahsavari
Ekaterina Sisfontes
Nina Wedberg Thulin
Chih-Lin Yeh
Andrej Zverev
Abundance
The Day after and the Rope-trick
We live in a world of abundance. Never before have humanity had so much. There is more than enough for everyone, if distributed right.
We live in a part of the world that for many generations have produced and used for abundance and the goal has been reached a long time ago. But we do not know how to use this abundance. The piles of trash grow into mountains that threaten to bury us all in an avalanche. There is no place untouched and no resource we do not threaten to suck dry.
The abundance of ideas, information, knowledge and progress of the analytical mind is escalating. Everything new is old at the next click evolving into the next level. Nothing lasts and everything grows beyond control.
There has never been so much art in the world before. There are more new artists every year than what there has been artists altogether through all of history. Our time is a time of pictures, movies, music and artifacts in abundance; art as well as non-art.
There is no end to what humans can accomplish and demolish, in abundance.
We consume in abundance. Will there be a day after?
We think we can escape the consequences. What will be the magic rope-trick that can save us all?
Med stöd av Nordic Culture Point
Och KulturRådet