Nearly and nervous nearly and now

Symposium 4-7 pm, Okidoki!, Kastellgatan 1
Publications and wine, 7-9 pm Galleri Box, Kastellgatan 10

This event is free but space is limited so be sure to reserve a place at simple signup.

A symposium focused on the object in writing and the artist as writer. What kind of relationship to materials, objects and bodies can a text based art practice have? In what ways do the performance and the book remain open to a transformation, one into the other?

Nearly and nervous nearly and now invites artists, writers and artists who write to present new works. The event features Julia Calver (UK), Ida Marie Hede (DK), Rebecca La Marre (CA), Ola Ståhl (SE) and Cara Tolmie (UK). An afternoon of readings and presentations will be followed by a discussion chaired by writer and artist Matthew Rana.
Gathering contributions from four countries the symposium will discuss shared intellectual concerns and examine the different contexts these writers/artists find themselves in, looking at similarities in ways of working, and the systems of distribution for their work. We will also consider the conditions under which text and writers are welcomed into the gallery space and the relationship between art and writing in the context of exhibitions.

Readings and discussion will be in English and take place at OkiDoki!, Kastellgatan 1. This will be followed by drinks and the opportunity to browse and buy books and publications at Galleri Box, Kastellgatan 10. Any enquiries should be sent to esme.valencia[at]googlemail.com.

The publishers who will participate are Eros Press, Monster Emporium Press, OEI Editör, Blackbook Publications, VARV VARV, Asp Publishing, PS Malmö, Antipyrine, LemonMelon and Null & Void.

Nearly and nervous nearly and now is curated by the artist Esmeralda Valencia Lindström in collaboration with the artist Julia Calver and hosted by Galleri Box. It is made possible by support from Arts Council England and the British Council; and the City of Gothenburg. We also want to thank the architecture firm OkiDoki! for generously providing their space for this event.

Julia Calver is an artist and writer based in London. She is currently working on her first collection of short fiction, to be published by Copy Press, London. In her writing an attempt is made to explode the image, leaving an exploded form. She is interested in processes of dispersal and distribution, the qualities of light which attend weather conditions and psychological responses to diurnal patterns. Recent published works include: Sound a light timpani in It’s Moving from I to It, FormContent, launched at Tate Modern for the Tate Live series; and Timepieces for One Thing Leads to Another – Everything is Connected, Jubilee Line Commissions, Art on the Underground. She has been awarded a grant to research approaches to artists’ writing in Sweden and Denmark from the Artists’ International Development Fund supported by Arts Council England and the British Council. In May 2015 she will return to Gothenburg as part of IASPIS international residency programme. Reflecting on the position of artists’ writing in relation to visual arts, performance and literature she will seek collaborations with Gothenburg-based publishers, writers and curators. During her residency in May she will hold weekly open sessions in her studio at Konstepidemin exploring shared ideas through collaboration, rehearsal and production.

Ida Marie Hede is a writer and an art historian. She holds an MA in Aural and Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and an MPhil in Art History from the University of Copenhagen. She graduated from the Danish Academy in Creative Writing in 2008. Her literary and performative practice investigates correspondences between organic/inorganic environments, states of being and the experiment as a material, surreal event as well as the space between body, text and the collaborative. Her published works (Danish, English and German) include Seancer, 2010; GIZMO (with Christian Mayer), 2012; Det kemiske bryllup, 2013; Kollektive læseformer (with Amalie Smith) 2013 and Inferno (with Signe Schmidt Kjølner Hansen), 2014.

Rebecca La Marre is a Canadian artist based in London. Her activity situates art in the field of language and makes use of multiple registers of production, spanning publishing and performing. She uses different literary and critical modes to explore the materiality of language – how it affects a person’s ability to inhabit their subjectivity, and how it can limit or expand experience. She is especially interested in finding areas of evasion, negotiation and revision within linguistic structures. She performs throughout Europe, is a commissioning editor for E.R.O.S Press and has her publications distributed internationally by Motto, Antenne and Central Books. Rebecca has recently been awarded a grant to exhibit in St. Petersburg through the Artists’ International Development Fund from Arts Council England and the British Council.
rebecca-lamarre.com

Ola Ståhl is a Senior Lecturer in The Theory and Cultural History of Art and Design at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from The University of Leeds. Formerly part of the editorial collective of critical theory journal Parallax and associate lecturer on the Fine Art program at Central Saint Martin College of Art and Design and the Design program at London College of Communication, he has worked actively as an artist and writer since the late 1990s. Since 2008 he’s been running an experimental publishing platform, currently in collaboration with Terje Östling, known as Publication Studio Malmö. He has published several articles, essays, prose texts and artist books, read and performed his writing internationally, and participated in several exhibitions of text and book based art.

Cara Tolmie is an artist currently based in London who works with moving image, performance, sound and installation. She made two new projects in 2013; Pley, commissioned and produced by Picture This and exhibited at Spike Island, Bristol and Artissima, Turin; and Otiumfold commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Both used the format of the ‘exercise’ to scrutinise interpersonal relations between groups of performers each navigating their own investigations into play, improvisation and language. She has recently made collaborative performances with Patrick Staff for Open File at Outpost, Norwich; Paul Abbott for the Counterflows festival in Glasgow; and Kimberley O’Neil and France-Lise McGurn for Generations at Tramway, Glasgow.

Matthew Rana is a writer and artist living between Gothenburg and Berlin. His publications, performances and artworks have been presented at SITE Santa Fe, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gothenburg’s Konsthall and the Biennale de Belleville, among others. Since 2010, he has also been a member of Speech & What Archive, a performative research group and publishing platform based in Paris. Matthew is a regular contributor to Art Agenda and frieze, and his recent book of poems The Theory of the Square is published by Torpedo Press.

Esmeralda Valencia Lindström is an artist based in Gothenburg and London. She uses video, objects, performance and installation to consider aspects of social situations involving objects, animals and people. Her work evolves as a series of tools attempting to unlock the specific qualities of its different components. Recent exhibitions include Other people’s trades at Arcade, London (2012), The opposite of what we know to be true at Fold Gallery, London (2013), Womanshour at Horizonverticaal, Harlem (2013), The Stone is lying on the Path, Two Queens Gallery, Leicester (2013) and Majestic Bather at 168m2, Copenhagen (2014). In conjunction with the Gothenburg Biennial 2013 she curated the exhibition I REMOVE A SPHERE FROM MY HEAD, I REMOVE A SPHERE FROM MY HEAD, at Galleri Konstepidemin together with the artist Jack Strange. She has recently been awarded a two-year working grant from the Swedish Arts grants committee.