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27/5/2005

Offentlig Handling

Lunds Konsthall, Lund

Lara Almarcegui
Sean Snyder
Darius Ziura
Asa Sonjasdotter in collaboration with architect Tanja Jordan

The summer exhibition at Lund Konsthall shows present four artists who work in a contemporary urban environment and with media representations. The developed, modern society is fundamentally an urban society concerned with information. But it is also the sum of the people who inhabit it and the room for action which they are able to create for themselves.

The title of the exhibition, Offentlig handling (Public Act), alludes to a duality of meaning – on the one hand the act in the form of a private individual's action in the public domain, on the other the document which is in the public domain and which, therefore, everyone has the right to consult. The concept carries within it the experience and dynamic between what a citizen wants and is allowed to do as opposed to the strategic value that means that access to other information can be limited by restrictions and laws.

The works shown in Offentlig handling will activate the Lund Konsthall both by offering comments and inviting to discussion. They will occupy the gallery while simultaneously and equally encouraging the visitor to leave it in order to seek out the works that are actively engaged in investigating Lund as urban space. Besides the local perspective - several of the works have been produced specially for Lund and Lund Konsthall - other works emphasize a current, large-scale aspect which assumes a global perspective.

Lara Almarcegui is concerned with drawing attention to neglected sites in the urban environment, sites that fall outside the framework of urban planning in that they lack any obvious purpose or specific design. Expressly for Lund Konsthall she has produced two new works: Guide to undefined places in Lund in the form of a booklet with maps and explanatory texts, and a textual work entitled Lund – construction material, consisting of a list that presents the extent and density of the material elements that together form the urban core of Lund.

Asa Sonjasdotter's works start from a specific place or situation around which she creates a framework for the thought processes and discussion within the special group that the work involves. In connection with the exhibition, on 24 May from 7 to 9 pm Asa Sonjasdotter will act as moderator for a discussion entitled Fri talan och stadens rum (Free speech and urban space) to be held at the gallery with invited speakers from Lund. Working with architect Tanja Jordan and after discussion with the Municipality of Lund, Asa Sonjasdotter has been granted permission to show the work Fri talan (Free speech) an erected wall in front of the town hall in the center of Lund. For a number of weeks in May Fri talan will call for action and present the views of the citizens of Lund.

In his installations Sean Snyder makes use of photography, video film and text assembly to investigate the media, architecture and the urban environment as representatives of economic and political structures. His projects can be described as structural analyses that examine the urban environment on a case-by case basis as narratives of a process of transformation. Offentlig handling features a selection of recent projects. Two Oblique Representations of a Given Place, (Pyongyang), 2001-2004, juxtaposes of two views of the North Korean capital; one utilizing amateur film material and the other extracted from official documentary imagery associated with North Korea. The video Analepsis (2003-2004) consists of a series of sequences depictions of urban space excerpted from satellite television news broadcasts. By his selection of material and his omission of the sound from the original news programs, Snyder reinterprets the footage exposing the cinematographic quality inherent in television news.

Darius Ziura works focuses on a detailed description of a geographical place while developing a larger, coherent work using photographs and video film based on that same place. In Offentlig handling, Darius Ziura is showing Gustoniai, a video project with documentary characteristics, in which the artist in the streets and over a long period of time confronted all the citizens of the Lithuanian village of the same name, asking them to participate in filmed minute-long portraits. Darius Ziura will also show the works Palanga, Milky Way and Road, which in a similar fashion underlines the artist’s interest in exploring a certain place by undertaking elaborate and time-consuming investigations in video.

Lara Almarcegui was born in Saragossa, Spain now living in Rotterdam the Netherlands. Asa Sonjasdotter was born in Lund, Sweden and lives in Copenhagen. Sean Snyder was born in Virginia Beach in the USA and lives in Berlin, Germany. Darius Ziura was born in Gustoniai in Lithuania and now lives in Vilnius.

Offentlig handling is the second exhibition to result from collaboration between Lund Konsthall and Mats Stjernstedt, curator, writer and director of Index the Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in Stockholm.

Lund Konsthall
Martenstorget 3 Box 2051, SE-220 02 Lund

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