I was born in Lund, Sweden in 1966. I went into art rather late in life. I was somewhat aware of the kind of challenge it would be, and this was also the reason for my hesitation. I first studied in Trondheim, Norway, and then in Copenhagen, Denmark. During my studies I earned my money as a translator for film and TV, as a waitress in a poker club and as a cleaning woman in private homes. Later I got a job as an art teacher in an evening school. During this period I joined a feminist reading group, which turned into the art activist group Women Down The Pub. The year I graduated (2000), we organized a rather large project. We had a big budget, but there wasn’t much left for our honorary. I joined Fast Video, an artist run workshop for artists using digital media. I got a two-year stipend for young artists, and it was an enormous relief to be able to cover my monthly rent. In 2001, we were some artists living in the same neighbourhood who started to meet every Monday morning in a local bar for a cup of coffee, after which we went drifting in the area. We visited many local enterprises, clubs and grass root organisations. The meetings always stirred important discussions, and after half a year we founded Outer Nørrebro Cultural Bureau (YNKB). We organized projects in the neighbourhood, thematic events, talks and exhibitions. Because of our experimenting format, we rarely got funding. We ran the place on a shoestring budget. YNKB still exists, with some old (founding members Kirsten Dufour and Finn Thybo Andersen) and several new members. In 2001 I participated in the formation of UKK (Young Art Workers Organisation), which was started as a reaction on the newly elected right wing government’s harsh cultural politics. From 2002 to 2004, we made another large project with Women Down The Pub, an anthology on feminist projects in Denmark. No private funding body wanted to support us, and the project ended up as a solidarity project, with all participants working more or less for free (and the outcome was great). In 2003 I was appointed for The Art Council’s International Committee, where we dealt with funding for artists’ international exchange, appointments for residencies etc. This was a great opportunity for me to learn how political interests operate through funding structures for art and culture, and I even got a fee. In 2004 I got a residency in India, where I visited Navdanya, a women-led farmers’ organization for the conservation of traditional seeds and farming knowledge. In an effort to transform this experience into Scandinavian context, I started to grow endemic potatoes at my parents’ small-scale farm in Sweden. This would eventually turn into a long lasting involvement with potatoes and their peculiar but factual relation to power and knowledge. In 2005 I was chairperson for NIFCA (Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art) when the Danish minister of culture decided to close it down. In a surprising way it has been possible for me to use and transform the experience from these activist and real political situations into my potato project. I have become very interested in the relation between arts, knowledge and power and I try to analyse it from a potato-perspective. In 2007 I was asked to help establishing a new art academy in Tromsø, North Norway. This was for me a fantastic possibility to join a situation of experimentation on all these questions I had become so interested in. It has been a lot of hard work, but also an incredible possibility for learning. I don’t think the question of art and survival really is about money, meaning that I don’t believe that if only the artists get enough money all will be fine. It’s really more about conditions on a broader scale, what kind of role art plays in society, and about how artists are enable to influence the conditions under which they work. There is a lot of interest in art, but artists have far too little a say on this. But I also think that many artists are not interested in these questions.
31.01.2010
