« A media-critical artist book, designed to engage how we interpret media images and flows, drilled and screwed by hand. Its blackened outer margins serve as a singular frame for focus. »
Källström-Fäldt
Artist: Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt
Design: Axel von Friesen
Texts: Dragana Vujanovic Östlind, Duncan Forbes, Johannes Wahlström
Published: B-B-B-Books, Hasselblad Foundation, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
Left: Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, 2024. Right: David A Scott, 1969.
Calendario Triestino / The Many Faces of the Moon (2024) part of the exhibition To the Moon and Back.
To the Moon and Back
Inauguration
Astronaut Marcus Wandt will inaugurate the exhibition
Date and time: Thursday, September 26, at 11:00 AM
About the Exhibition
This exhibition unites science and photography from a societal perspective. In addition to historical NASA images, moon cameras, and the story of Erna and Victor Hasselblad, contemporary works by photographic artists depicting space in various ways are also presented. The exhibition explores the fascination with the moon, its beauty, and humanity’s smallness in the universe. There are also works that critically highlight the historical invisibility of women in astronomy, as well as questions about truth and photography in relation to the 1960s space race. Other works examine today’s ambitions to use the moon to monitor the Earth. Additionally, images from Gothenburg’s largest photography project for ninth graders, also themed around space, are displayed.
Participating photographers To the Moon and Back: Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Ansel Adams, Helena Blomqvist, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nanna Debois Buhl, Joan Fontcuberta, Maria Friberg, Sven Gillsäter, Victor Hasselblad, Michael Light, NASA, Lennart Nilsson, Per Olof Swanberg, Johan Österholm, and ninth graders from Gothenburg.
IMAGES Practices of post-representional aesthetics
IN RELATION
curated by Francesca Lazzarini
08.06 – 06.07.2024
MLZ Art Dep and WAF, in collaboration with AiR Trieste, are pleased to present Images in Relation. Post-representational Aesthetic, an exhibition featuring works by the artistic duo Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt and the artist Giovanna Repetto. Attentive observers of the radical transformations experienced by photography over time, these artists have developed conscious and inventive practices to mobilize images as tools of sense-making and knowledge production.
While the Källström-Fäldt duo uses the strategy of juxtaposition to read the present in the light of the past and undermine the dominant narratives of our time, Repetto questions the narrative capacity of the image straddling the domains of the real and the virtual. Relationality – between and with images – emerges as the key to responding to the crisis of representation that invested photography and to re-actualizing the visual’s potential in the era of the post-photographic.
Opening: 08.06. h 18
MLZ Art Dep & Wiener Art Foundation
Via Roma 15
II floor
I – 34100 Trieste
Victory over the Victory, Köttinspektionen, Uppsala, Sweden, 2024 (April 6 – April 21)
Any artistic group statement about the war inherently acknowledges its incompleteness. Moreover, there’s a risk of it becoming overly representative, reducing culture and art to commodities. Similarly, any curatorial public statement is inherently political, particularly in the context of an ongoing war, making it especially vulnerable to politicization. Whether or not to discuss the war is a decision every institution faces. However, once the choice is made, it’s important to convey our internal logic and trust in the viewer’s loyalty and acceptance. Köttinspektionen has a strong tradition of hosting exhibitions with significant political engagement and a keen sensitivity to current challenges. Therefore, we considered it pertinent to invite artists whose artistic practice revolves around questions of war, loss, sorrow and memory.
Victory over the Victory commenced with extensive and purposeful discussions between situated voices of artists, art practitioners who are directly involved in current anti-war efforts, impacted by the consequences of militarism and the belligerent ideologies of their own or other nation-states, or actively engaged in reflecting on historical and contemporary events. A given socio-historical moment is never homogeneous; on the contrary, it is rich in contradictions. Within the framework of this exhibition, various genealogies with clear positions are collected and juxtaposed. The exhibition is an attempt to highlight the personal affective dimensions of collective history. But what happens when we give a voice to one and deprive another of it?
A voice is always somebody’s voice, and our voices don’t fully represent our identities, which carry traces of the other. Whether it’s the smooth voice of state propaganda, the emotional speech of a leader advocating peace and freedom while justifying notable wars and destruction, the credible voice of a victim, the quiet voice of an observant witness, the silently present voice of the voiceless, or echoing voice of the absent ones?
The artists featured in the exhibition bring voices from different countries and generations. Their works span across time and space, from the aftermath of WWI and WWII to the repercussions of armed conflicts following the dissolution of the former Eastern bloc, and extend to the ongoing colonial wars in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East.
The viewer is met by the voice of the sound installation by Mkrtich Tonnoyan who calls out the long-forgotten names of Canadian soldiers in the almost 14-hour commemoration ritual, reviving the memory of those absent and questioning the value of countries’ international missions in relation to human life.
This voice leaks further to the big room connecting with works that testify to the traces left by the war. Pavel Rotts explores the city’s psychogeography and creates a map depicting the damage inflicted upon buildings in Helsinki. By transforming these scars into climbing boulders, he reveals a negative space—a void that paradoxically becomes a vessel for memory. Anastasia Yarovenko cuts out from fine paper patterns of tank tracks that appeared when Russia invaded her native Ukraine; the traces of the war hang in the air and end up on the floor. The traces of war hang in the air and end up on the floor, transferring recognizable signs and visual elements of war into abstractions, thereby questioning the role of the image in communication. Ingela Johansson studies the memory and healing that unites postwar generations with history of antifascist-resettlement cooperatives from Bohemia, while the Armenian collective AHA seeks to preserve in physical imprints the memories of their people’s cultural heritage that may be lost to future generations. Above everything else, Joakim Forsgren exhibits his grandmother’s burial cover cloth, which would naturally belong in the church, turning the exhibition room into a sacred place.
Anri Sala’s film takes us to Sarajevo to follow a story of a musician bravely navigating through the sieged city to join orchestra rehearsals. At every crossing watched by snipers she stops, looks and listens. Should she wait or should she run? Should she wait for the others or take the risk on her own? Aftermath of other Yugoslavian conflicts find their continuation in intimate self portraits of Snežana Vučetić Bohm. In the same room, other war documents are displayed. Ukrainian artist Arthur Bondar has shown original photo collages from an official censored Soviet propagandistic military newspaper – The Red Star justapoxed with images taken by German soldiers while passing through Sandinavia. Another time-based and archival approach is seen in work of Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Johannes Wahlström, who have been analyzing and revisiting the hidden and yet omnipresent complexities of the conflict between Palestine and Israel the last 3 decades.
The works of Matilda Frykberg, Juan-Pedro Fabra Guemberena and Zhanna Kadyrarova take us back to today’s war in Ukraine. A radio streaming a popular music mixed with political speeches, an omnipresent Russian rocket pursues the visitor from room to room.
Soundscapes of Kabul recorded by Aziz Hazara after the American troops left the country loop the exhibition voice with the names of soldiers, thus reflecting on decades of conflicts that Afghanistan has endured and the stereotyped narratives resulting from it.
The intertwining of war and politics remains a defining feature of our contemporary world, where preventive warfare is increasingly recognized and justified on an international scale. As the grand strategy of peace shifts with each administration the military emerges as an even larger social class in countries like the US, Russia or China, yet, reviving the ideas that war is ultimately a continuation of politics by other means. While the pacifistic poster of Carl Johan De Geer suggests an uncompromising strategy, the bellicose mindset perpetuates organized large-scale violence, challenging our aspirations for peace as the elusive norm. As we reflect on these realities, we must question whether we have become desensitized to the inevitability of militarization, and dare to imagine a world where the call to war goes unheeded, where peace becomes not just an unattainable ideal, but a tangible reality.
10 Year Anniversary Exhibition, CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, USA, 2024 (Jan 18 – April 20)
Artist Opening and Anniversary Party: Friday, January 19 8-10 p.m.
KLARA KÄLLSTRÖM & THOBIAS FÄLDT, SQUEAK CARNWATH, TAU LEWIS, KIJA LUCAS, CHRIS DUNCAN, SHAGHA ARIANNIA, ADRIAN BURRELL, SARAH PALMER, GEORGE MCCALMAN, MARY FERNANDO CONRAD, DAVID WILSON, REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN, RHONDA HOLBERTON, AMY NATHAN, MIA WEINER, DREW BENNETT, RUXUE ZHANG, MASAKO MIKI, RACHEL BRIDGES, IVAN BRIDGES, JESSICA NIELLO WHITE, NICKI GREEN, SOPHRONIA COOK, FRITZ CHESNUT, MIYA ANDO, RACHEL KAYE, JAY NELSON, CURTIS TALWST SANTIAGO, NICOLE NADEAU, ANDREW OWEN, BINTA AYOFEMI, SUZY POLING, CHRIS FALLON, JAMIL HELLU, DEAN SMITH<
and more
CULT TURNS 10 is a love letter to all the artists who have shared their work with us, and to the collectors, curators and public who have supported us in a myriad of ways over the last ten years. The exhibition is in two parts, the first opens in San Francisco (1401 16th Street) on January 18 and runs through March 2, with an artist reception and anniversary party on Friday, January 19. The second iteration will open in Oakland (482 49th Street) on February 23.
Curator Aimee Friberg opened CULT Aimee Friberg to the public on November 9, 2013 with a group exhibition titled Unseen. Friberg’s intention was to create a platform for rigorous work that is both experimental and attuned to the social complexities of the present moment. Through gallery presentations, offsite exhibitions, artist conversations and multimedia events, CULT engages a broad Bay Area and international audience with programming that encourages artists—especially women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ communities—to take risks with their work. CULT founder Aimee Friberg understands her role as a bridge between artists making critical work about the social moment, and those who are deeply inspired by it. From the beginning, CULT has been rooted in the unseen, those forces that challenge us to recognize our essential interconnectedness. In this particularly heightened moment, Friberg invites the artists and the close community she serves to commune together with intention, and to move beyond perceived differences and ideologies. In this way CULT is a safe space not only for artists to take risks with their work, but also to witness one another in our collective becoming.
Join us on Friday, January 19 from 8-10 p.m. to celebrate this milestone, and to applaud all the artists and collaborators working to make the Bay Area a rich and nutritive environs for creative work and open dialogue.
🔻A Beach for Gaza🔺
Join us on Dec 15 @studiopilot.gbg for the sale of books and prints in support of Gaza. A Beach (B-B-B-Books 2013) is a collaboration between Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt and Johannes Wahlström, given form by 1:2:3 (Axel von Friesen & Petter Törnqvist). The book turns 10 years this month and has been sold out for a long time. Photographically it depicts the transformation of the Arab city of Jaffa and the gentrification processes following the Tel Aviv expansion where the houses have been shredded into pieces and thrown into the sea; an ocean full of memories subsequently brought back onto the shore by the waves. Walking down the newly constructed beach promenades and recreational areas for yoga and contemplation, writer Johannes Wahlström recalls a childhood memory of a place and a history now eroded into sand.
Moment 4
HDK-Valand, Hasselblad and GPS400: Centre for Collaborative Visual Research; in collaboration with Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt
Opening on Friday 24 November, 15:00-16:00.
The exhibition is part of the research project ”Moment: Lens Media Evidence and Aesthetics in Sweden 1939–1969”, conducted in collaboration between HDK-Valand, GPS400, the Hasselblad Foundation, and in cooperation with actors within the academy and the surrounding society.
Peripheral vision: Images from the fringe of Europe
Peripheral vision is the ability to see things outside of your direct line of sight. To notice and pay attention to what isn’t necessarily most obvious is a gift that the photographers in this book share. They represent different views and approaches to a changing Sweden and shows a selection of contemporary photography that oscillates between the documentary and the poetic.
Participating artists: Ikram Abdulkadir, Karin Alfredsson, Elin Berge, Maja Daniels, Charlotta Hammar, Erik Holmstedt, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, Cia Kanthi, Heikki Kaski, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Mårten Lange, Inka & Niclas Lindergård, Eric Magassa, Martin Magntorn, Chris Maluszynski, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Mia Rogersdotter Gran, Sofia Runarsdotter, Johannes Samuelsson and Märta Thisner.
The book is distributed by Art & Theory Publishing.
Book launch at Institut suédois in Paris, November 9, 17.00-19.00
The Book Källström-Fäldt is shortlisted at 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards as 1 out of 5 entries selected for the Photography Catalog of the Year
”Paris Photo and Aperture are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards—an annual celebration of the photobook’s contributions to the evolving narrative of photography. Now in its eleventh year, the award recognizes excellence in three major categories of photobook publishing: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalog of the Year.
This year, Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards received 961 books from sixty-one countries, including stand-out entries from Nepal, New Zealand, Denmark, and Japan. On September 20–22, 2023, the shortlist jury met in New York for three concentrated days of review and deliberation by an international team: Deirdre Donohue, assistant director of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, the New York Public Library; Alex Lin, creative director and owner, Studio Lin; Lesley A. Martin, editor at large, Aperture; Renée Mussai, artistic director, the Walther Collection; and Anna Planas, artistic director, Paris Photo.
Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo, and Florence Bourgeois, director of Paris Photo, jointly noted: “The PhotoBook Awards pursue, this year, their long-term commitment and support for photography books. We are very excited to celebrate this year’s exhibition with a selection that offers a source for discovery and enchantment to all photobook lovers. The PhotoBook Awards shortlist will feature thirty-five of the most relevant publications from the past year, giving an international overview of the diversity and richness of today’s production.”
Shortlist jury member Alex Lin added: “As a book designer, I truly appreciate how rare it is for a competition to so carefully judge both a book’s form and content. Having worked on Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s Untitled, the 2021 recipient of the First PhotoBook Prize, I was able to witness firsthand the impact and significance that this recognition gave to both a small publisher and to the photographer. I personally experienced the joy and satisfaction that the Prize can bring to publishers who work with limited budgets but with pure passion.”
A final jury will gather at Paris Photo this November to select winners for all three prizes, which will be revealed on Friday, November 10, 2023. From there, shortlisted and winning titles will be exhibited in Paris, and will tour internationally thereafter.”
Welcome to a lecture about the artistry of Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, with Dr. Duncan Forbes, Head of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London!
In their practice Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt make extensive use of historical reference and historical juxtaposition to make sense of the present, including the status of photography. Building on the insights of their work, this lecture investigates the way that other contemporary photographers approach questions of historical consciousness and historical process.
How do photographers situate the medium critically in a world of frantically circulating images? What is the impact of globalisation on photographic practice today? How does contemporary photography reveal disjunctive or fragmenting temporalities? Paying close attention to artists’ formal strategies, the lecture argues that questions of historical consciousness provide a potential route out of the impasse of image-making today.
PARTICIPANTS:
Dr. DUNCAN FORBES is Head of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He was previously a researcher at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angles, Director of Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, and Senior Curator of Photography at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. His exhibitions, books and catalogues include Edith Tudor Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny (Hatje Cantz, 2013); Manifeste!: Eine Andere Geschichte der Fotografie (Steidl, 2014); Beastly/Tierisch (Spector Books, 2015); and Provoke: Between Protest and Performance, Photography in Japan 1960/1975 (Steidl, 2016). Recent essays have appeared in catalogues for the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His latest book is An Interview with Lewis Baltz (MACK, 2020).
FG2 is pleased to host the first exhibition by SWIT Platform. Founded in 2022 by artist Stefano Conti as a curatorial and research project, SWIT aims to strengthen the cooperation between Sweden-based and Italy-based artists working with photography, supporting them through cultural exchanges.
For this occasion, SWIT invited Luca Panaro to curate an exhibition that brings together projects touching upon relationships, archives, and materiality.
As an addition to it, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt from FG2 present a new work.
Participating artists:
Claudia Petraroli
Emma Sandström
Erik Gustafsson
Matilde Søes Rasmussen
Matteo Girola
Sara Davide
Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt
The Book Källström-Fäldt is shortlisted at The Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards 2023 as 1 out of 23 entries selected for the Photo-Text Award
23 books shortlisted
[Title, photographer/author, publisher, city, country]
Källström-Fäldt, Klara Kallstrom & Thobias Faldt, co-édition Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz Köning / B-B-B-Books / Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, Sweden Qui êtes-vous Polly Maggoo?, William Klein, Delpire & co, Paris, France Better not move, Petra Noordkamp, Architectura & Natura, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Dizionario Vol 1 (2012 – 2022), Luca Massaro, Art Paper Editions, Ghent, Belgium Fields of sight, Gauri Gill, Édition Patrick Fray, Zürich, Switzerland 22 Days in Between, Salih Basheer, Disko Bay, Copenhagen, Denmark L’agriculture comme écriture, Nina Ferrer-Gleize, Éditions GwinZegal, Guingamp, France Dear Franklin, Kurt Tong, Atelier EXB, Paris, France Far away from home: the voices, the body and the periphery, Hristina Tasheva, Autoédition/Self-Publishing, Breda, the Netherlands Te Amo, Luis Cobelo, La Chancleta Voladora, Mexico City, Mexico Utopia Ending, Gianluca Calisw, The Velvet Cell, Berlin, Germany Disparations, Cyril Burget, Editions d’une rive à l’autre, Paris, France So Far So Good, No Sovereign Author, Witty Books, Turin, Italia Tufnell Park Hilton (TPH), Chris Shaw, Zen Photo Gallery, Berwick, United Kingdom L’amour seul brisera nos cœurs, Bérangère Fromont, à la maison printing, Paris France La Suite Basque, Charles Freger, L’Artiere Edizioni, Bologna, Italy Ukraine – Hundred Hidden Faces, Émeric Lhuisset, André Frère Éditions, Marseille France I hide myself whithin my flowers, Mariken Kramer, Multipress, Oslo, Norway Le Stade de la Lose, Olivier Cablat, co-édition Poursuite / Images Vevey / GwinZegal / RVB Books Debaltsevo, Where are you?, Karine Zenja Versluis, The Eriskay Connection, Breda, the Netherlands Klara and the Bomb, Crystal Bennes, The Eriskay Connection, Breda, the Netherlands Where’s the Afters?, Nik Erik Neubauer, National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenja Anti Installation, Geoffroy Mathieu / Jordi Ballesta, Building Books, Paris France
”Each book submitted is deposited in the library of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles. The shortlist is presented to the public in a dedicated place throughout the festival and the Book Award winners are announced during opening week.”
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt at the Hasselblad Foundation, May 27—September 24, 2023.
Writer and collaborator: Johannes Wahlström
Design: Axel von Friesen
Texts: Duncan Forbes, Dragana Vujanović Östlind
Editors: Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt
Copy editor: Sylee Gore
472 pages
25,5 x 34,5 cm / 9,9 in x 13.4 in
Full color offset
First edition: 500
Print: Printon, Estonia
ISBN 978-3-7533-0449-6
Publication date: 26 May 2023
Published by:
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König / B-B-B-Books/ Hasselblad Foundation
Video produced by the Hasselblad Foundation in conjunction with the exhibition Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Hasselblad Center, 27 May – 24 September 2023.
Director of photography: Christoffer Rutström
Sound and edit: Christoffer Rutström, Liis Ring
Moment 1
HDK-Valand, Hasselblad and GPS400: Centre for Collaborative Visual Research; in collaboration with Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt
Film screening: Bio Valand
10:00–11:30 AM Myglaren (The Grifter, 1966).
11:45 AM–12:45 PM Göteborg – Hjärtpunkt i Norden (Gothenburg: Heart of the Nordic Region, 1964), Som ringar på vattnet (Like Rings on Water, 1965) and A Place to Live (1967).
Exhibition, lectures and conversations: FG2
1:45 –2:00 PM Niclas Östlind: “Moment: An Introduction”.
2:00–2:30 PM Erik Florin Persson: “Urban Planning and the Welfare State: Swedish Commercial Film About 1965”.
2:30–3:15 PM Anders Dahlgren: “Urban Planning in the Record Years: Future Optimism and Planned Development”.
3.15–3.45 PM Intermission and Archival Interlude 1, Andreas Hagström: “The Truly Physical Meeting With an Archive on the Way Being Burnt – Or How I Saved Rune Hassner’s Clip Archive.”
3:45–4:30 PM Per Vesterlund: “The Case of Myglaren: At the Intersection of Film, Television and Politics in 1966”.
4:30–5:15 PM Annika Olsson: “The Role of Documentary Film in the People’s Home Era: Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle’s report books”.
5:15–6.00 PM Andreas Gedin: “Christer Strömholm and Nazism”.
6.00–6.30 PM Intermission and Archival Interlude 2, Karl-Magnus Johansson: “Clip Archives as Systems of Knowledge during the Post War Era.”
6:30–7:15 PM Conversation with the Speakers. Moderator: Mats Jönsson
Konstambulans, Help Ukraine Gothenburg (HUG), Kronhuset, Gothenburg, Sweden, 14 June 2022
A group exhibition and auction in aid of fundraising for a bulletproof ambulance for a children’s hospital in Ukraine
Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Johannes Wahlström are part of Antimatter by Aleix Plademunt
Antimatter is the catalogue of the exhibition Matter by Aleix Plademunt at Sala Canal de Isabel II, Madrid
Photos by Aleix Plademunt
Texts by Antonio M Xoubanova, Borja Bagunyà, Júlia Francino, David Bestué, Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt, Johannes Wahlström, Carlos Marques-Marcet, Mabel Tapia and Pascual Arnal
Drawings by Lys Villalba
Translation by Benjamin Palmer and Júlia Francino
Design by Kentaro Terajima
Printed in Barcelona
Co-published by Ca l’Isidret and Comunidad de Madrid
FG2 is part of GIBCA Extended 2021. Opening on Thursday 2 September, 17:00-20:00.
Exhibition period: 2 September – 21 November 2021
Tystnadskulturen / Vacant Niche
Johannes Wahlström in collaboration with Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Barthélémy Garcia.
Humankind can live a whole life without further reflection on the environment that makes our life possible, provided that everything works as it should. But as soon as the routines are broken, a world of questions that have always remained unanswered opens up. Unanswered for the simple reason that they were unasked. These unanswered questions form a pattern of blind spots, and constitute our collective culture of silence. At FG2, our society’s culture of silence is illuminated by something as mundane as the empty niches of our facades. These voids, untold stories, unexplored statues, and unplaced memorials, give us an opportunity to see what we cannot talk about.
FG2 has been generously supported by Gothenburg Arts and Cultural Affairs Committee for the participation at GIBCA Extended 2021.
On This Day, Klara Kallstrom, Thobias Faldt & Thomas Sauvin, co-édition B-B-B-Books & Beijing Sivermine How I Tried to Convince My Husband to Have Children, Olga Bushkova, Witty Books The Parameters of Our Cage, C. Fausto Cabrera & Alec Soth, Mack Sans lui, Sophie Calle, Atelier Exb John Cage: A Mycological Foray, collectif, Atelier Éditions Agata, Bieke Depoorter & Agata Korbus, Auto-Edition Beyond the Shadows, Elsa & Johanna, Éditions H2l2 Je suis malheureuse et heureuse, Anaïs Horn, Meta/Books How to Rejuvenate an Eagle, Adam & Dyba Lach, auto-édition The Idiots Delight, Duane Michals, Édition Bessard The San Quentin Project, Nigel Poor, Aperture Foundation Unprofessional, Matilde Soes Rasmussen, Disko Bay
”Each book submitted is deposited in the library of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles. The shortlist is presented to the public in a dedicated place throughout the festival and the Book Award winners are announced during opening week.”
Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Thomas Sauvin have been rewarded Hasselblad Foundation’s Large Photobook Grant of 2021 and the book will have its ”Sweden-release” accompanied by an exhibition together with the gallery project FG2 at Föreningsgatan 2 on June 22, 17:00-20:00
Exhibition period: June 22 – July 22, 2021
*
A project by
Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Thomas Sauvin
Designed by
Axel von Friesen & Michael Evidon
Essays by
Daniel Palmer
Johannes Wahlström
*
FG2 has been generously supported by Gothenburg Arts and Cultural Affairs Committee for the exhibition and book launch
*
About On This Day:
On This Day revolves around two archives; one consists of a collection of date-stamped everyday images from Beijing, China, taken between 1985 and 2005. The other archive is the Euro-American website onthisday, which maintains a daily register of interesting world events – seen from an Euro-American perspective. The artists have paired the date-stamped images with events of that day from the website creating a clash in the combination of the amateur photography archive from China and random events in the west.
Excerpt from essay by Daniel Palmer:
“Every image suggests a story. But Sauvin never wanted to be the sole author of the archive, and constantly seeks new perspectives on it in collaboration with others. Swedish artists Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt are logical collaborators, given their publications have also sought to excavate complex layers of history and explore the gaps between what is visible and knowable. (…) By using the date stamped photographs to drive their investigation, one readymade archive driving the other, they force together two incommensurable sources of incomplete information about the world. ‘Two inadequate descriptive systems’, as Martha Rosler might say, the gap between them complicating the self-evidentiary claims of each other, revealing their obvious omission and biases.”
Excerpt from essay by Johannes Wahlström:
”Much like libraries of the past, search engines are the arbiters of knowledge in the digital world, albeit functioning in a free market economy. In order to generate profit from our search for information, these engines have created a set of algorithms that per definition feed audiences with the lowest common denominator of relevance for the greatest amount of people. Paired with a self-perpetuating reinforcement. Or another way of putting it: different people can be interested in different information, but if cats are universally appealing, cats will be prominently displayed. And if there is a demand for cats, algorithms will provide with even more cats. This is the equivalent of food stores displaying candy in the most prominent shelves, expanding into other sections, and gradually replacing all other goods as the most appealing, self-reinforced, lowest common denominator amongst consumers.”
We are delighted to present our next exhibition On This Day, a collaboration between Gothenburg based duo Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and French artist and collector Thomas Sauvin.
On This Day revolves around two archives; one consists of a collection of date-stamped everyday images from Beijing, China, taken between 1985 and 2005. The other archive is the Anglo-American website onthisday.com, which maintains a daily register of interesting world events – seen from an Anglo-American perspective. The artists have paired the date-stamped images with events of that day from the website creating a clash in the combination of the amateur photography archive from China and random events in the west.
Accompanying the project, writer Johannes Wahlström takes on a critical historiographic approach through the text No History, No Problem.
The exhibition will open on Saturday 8th May (between 12-4pm) without an opening event and a maximum of 8 visitors will be permitted into the gallery at any one time. We would like to remind visitors to observe social distancing and to stay home if you are feeling even the slightest bit unwell.
Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt in collaboration with Thomas Sauvin have been awarded Hasselblad Foundation’s large Photo Book Grant of 2021 for On This Day.
”On This Day revolves around two archives; one consists of a collection of date-stamped everyday images from Beijing, China, taken between 1985 and 2005. The other archive is the American website onthisday.com, which maintains a daily register of interesting world events – seen from an American perspective. The artists have paired the date-stamped images with events of that day from the website. There is an interesting clash in the combination of the amateur photography archive from China and random events in the west. The book’s design will allude to archive aesthetics and we look forward to an innovative approach to the photo book genre.”
The book will be designed by Axel von Friesen and Michael Evidon and jointly published by B-B-B-Books and Beijing Silvermine. On This Day well be shown at Galleri Format in Malmö between 8 May and 12 June 2021.
Barthélémy Garcia FSDNS KLSSR – A Collective Decision
FG2 presents its eight exhibition at Föreningsgatan 2 in Gothenburg. Opening: Friday 13 November at 13:00
In 2020, Barthélémy Garcia received the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s Assistant Grant with Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt. The exhibition is a result of their collaboration, together with Johannes Wahlström.
Exhibition period: 13 November – 13 December 2020
The predominant decor and subject of Barthélémy Garcia’s work is the city, illustrated by his ongoing project Fasadens Kulisser, The Facades’ Coulisses, which includes his current exhibition FSNDS KLSSR – Ett kollektivt beslut, (a collective decision) shown at FG2.
In his artistic practice, Garcia departs from the idea that the material itself carries significance. He believes that objects possess an independent existence extending beyond the meaning we humans attribute to them. The starting point for FSNDS KLSSR – A collective decision is an exploration of the material, with the camera aimed at the city. The photographer’s suggestive gaze captures its social and physical distance, while being in the position of a bicycle messenger moving through today’s gig economy.
Urban landscapes have a longer lifespan than us, humans, and form the matrix for the objects produced in our society. Our lives are closely connected with things. Decisions about our living environment are made in spaces that are generally not considered ‘political’ — it’s the material that plays a decisive role here.
The amassment of everything that man produced from wood, glass, plastic, metal, brick, asphalt and concrete last year, would exceed the total weight of the entire biosphere; all that is living on earth. The exhibition at FG2 invites us to focus our attention on various aspects of our physical milieu — aspects that we are rarely conscious of, despite the impact they have on our lives.
Barthélémy Garcia (1985) is a French-born artist from Pertuis who has been based in the Swedish city of Gothenburg since 2011. He completed his BFA and MFA in Photography at Valand Academy after having studied Art history and Archeology in Aix-en-Provence. Garcia addresses life through — often mundane — materials and objects. During his time at Valand he developed a mild obsession with a radiator, subsequently expanding to AC’s, cell towers, artificial grass, roofs and supermarkets. His work is intellectually inspired, carried out intuitively, and, more often than not, includes misplaced academic quotes.
Other participating artists in the exhibition are Gabriel Nils Edvinsson and Ksenia Yurkova.
The exhibition was realized with the support of Albért Faus, Una Sigtryggsdottir, Christoffer Rutström, Maria Safronova Wahlström, Anne Grietje Franssen and Nadén arkitektur och snickeri.
A sneak peek of Klara, Thobias and Johannes new work Everybody Hurts, a one-day exhibition at FG2, on Tuesday, November 3 (The same day as the 2020 United States presidential election)
25 Lemon Trees, No Gardeners. 2015-2020: Klara Källström & Thobias
04.09−04.10.2020
Curator: Katia Krupennikova
Venue: Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art- LCCA
Exhibition within the framework of Survival Kit 11 Festival
In 25 Lemon Trees, No Gardeners, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt follow up on the media depiction of the Greek crisis, continuing an ongoing project that started with Europe, Greece, Athens, Acropolis in 2011.
The vantage point for 25 Lemon Trees, No Gardeners is a fake news story published a number of major European news outlets. The headlines exclaimed that the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens had 45 employed gardeners but no garden, and this came to be a perfect metaphor for a stereotype of Greek wastefulness, one of the presumed reasons behind the Greek economic crisis. The truth of the matter was that the hospital indeed had no garden, but neither did it have any gardeners. Upon closer inspection, it did however have 25 lemon trees.
In the early morning of June 27, 2015, the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that a referendum was to be held on whether the country should accept the bailout conditions proposed on June 25 by the Troika. The polls published by the European media prior to the referendum showed a clear lead for the “Yes” vote. However, they were all unexpectedly proven wrong, as “No” won by a landslide. Regardless, with some good old strong-arming, the “No” was turned in to a “Yes”, and austerity was implemented.
During the first half of 2015, the media reported on the presumed likelihood of a Grexit. After the Greek bailout referendum, the focus shifted to the refugee crisis—up until June 23, 2016, that is, when the UK voted for Brexit. Concluding the project, 25 Lemon Trees, No Gardeners carries a photograph taken on the day of Brexit, when Källström and Fäldt found themselves anew in Greece—this time at the port of Kavala, where thousands of refugees had set foot throughout the preceding year.
On January 31, 2020, the Brexit came into force and the UK membership of EU ended. On the same day, the first case of Corona virus in the UK was confirmed.
Klara and Thobias are part of this year’s edition of Survival Kit Festival at Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art – LCCA in Riga, entitled Being Safe is Scary and curated by Katia Krupennikova.
”The international contemporary art festival Survival Kit was born in 2009 as a reaction to the austerity caused by the economic crisis and has since continued to invite people to respond to changes taking place in the modern-day world and to reflect on various survival strategies.”
Klara Källström + Thobias Fäldt
Klængur Gunnarsson
Maria Safronova Wahlström
Johannes Wahlström
Josef Mellergård
Una Sigtryggsdòttir
“Each year Swedish fishermen catch 200 000 tons of fish in our seas. This is enough to feed the entire population, but it doesn’t. The global distribution chains that surround our internationalised market have made it more profitable to export locally caught fish, often for fishmeal, while simultaneously buying imported fish from all over the world.
In the exhibition “The Intermediary Chains” the artists reflect on the role of intermediaries in society, why we can no longer meet without them and what it would take to feed the multitude with the fish at hand.”
This set includes:
Fäldt, Thobias Year One
978-3-86521-537-6
At the beginning of 2006, I had the idea to hold back 50 copies of each Steidl book to be made in the coming years, a little like how winemakers put aside their fi nest vintages for future release. Since then I’ve continued the tradition, carefully tucking away these book bottles, waiting for the right moment to release them all together to the light of day.That moment has now come. I hope individuals and institutions all over the world enjoy savoring the diff erent fl avors of these books, the yield of 15 years. There are just 50 sets to be had; when they’re gone, the Steidl cellar is empty again. But remember: the best is yet to come.
Gerhard Steidl
Gerhard Steidl (ed.)Steidl Book Culture, 2006–2020
50 sets available
Contains all Steidl publications between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2020
Packed in seaworthy cardboard containers on Euro pallets, ready for transport by air, sea, road or railEx-works Göttingen, freight costs not included
€ 30,000.00 / £ 25,000.00 / US$ 35,000.00
ISBN 978-3-95829-769-2
✖️UGot Distance✖️
Online Degree Show 2020.
Fine Art Photography, HDK-Valand.
During the academic semester in the spring of 2020, Klara is the course director and lecturer for both the second year Master students and second year Bachelor students in Photography at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University.
”UGot Distance is this year’s degree show in photography from HDK-Valand. The exhibition consists of a visual part as well as in-depth text works on the website ugotphotography.se. In the current situation, where we have to keep a social distance, artworks intended for a physical exhibition have transformed and new ways of presentation have been considered. Students from BA3 and MA2 have taken the exhibition space into a digital world, letting more people get a chance to see it.”
Error_2020
Group Web Exhibition
HDK-Valand second year photography
During the academic semester in the spring of 2020, Klara is the course director and lecturer for both the second year Master students and second year Bachelor students in Photography at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University.
“As the title suggests, being an artist in the current circumstances is a cause for confusion; all of the works in the exhibition have been produced or adapted during this time of ‘error’. Opposing the traditional conventions of the ‘white cube’, Error2020 is an explorative space where art meets in collaboration with the digital world, to try and make sense of uncertainty. Through exploration of the digital labyrinth, please make your own narrative.”
Klara and Thobias are part of Arte Fiera in Bologna. In the Photography and Moving Images section, you find us at MLZ Art Dep in great company of Discipula and The Cool Couple.
Guidance for Investigators (Handledning för utredningsmän)
Book launch, conversation and exhibition
On 21 November 2019 at 18:00, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt invite Carl Johan Erikson and Björn Larsson to launch and present the book Guidance for Investigators at FG2 in Gothenburg.
In conjunction with the book launch, the video installation Interviews: Violence Against People will be shown.
About the book
Carl Johan Erikson and Björn Larsson have compiled documents concerning assessments of applications for non-combatant military service in Sweden from 1966–1989. Guidance for Investigators is part of the reasearch project Refuse to Kill: The Stories of Conscientious Objectors.
Refuse to Kill seeks to investigate a specific segment of recent Swedish history between 1966 and 1992 through the testimonies and narratives of conscientious objectors. In other words, those who chose not to perform traditional military service, but applied for, and were granted, non-combat service. Existential questions about the conscientious objector’s movement, such as the right to invoke one’s conscience, concern the individual’s room to manoeuvre in relation to the law and rights, and still carry relevance today considering the resumption of compulsory military service. The right to conscientious objection is the main focus of the project, as well as social expectations, norms, gender structures and the logic of measurability.
Post-Photography: Histories, Geographies and Contemporary Challenges
In conjunction with the exhibition View India, shown at Landskrona Museum, Valand Academy, Hasselblad Foundation, Landskrona Foto and Lund University, arrange a public symposium.
The symposium will focus on how contemporary lens-based practices in India and elsewhere are investigating and addressing questions about local, national and global histories, social, political and environmental challenges today. The uses of archives, post-photography practices and different ways of publishing are also important issues which will be high-lighted in the symposium.
After the symposium the activities continues at FG2/Föreningsgatan 2.
The symposium is free to attend. Please register on the link below.
Museum of Yugoslavia (Radovan Cukić, Ivan Manojlović, Mirjana Slavković) Works from the Travelling Communiqué Project
Museum of Yugoslavia (Jovana Nedeljković), Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt and Johannes Wahlström The End of Hypocrisy: A Good Day for Bad Weather
In production with Per Nadén, Barthélémy Garcia and Fabian Reppen
FG2 presents its third exhibition at Föreningsgatan 2 in Gothenburg Opening: Thursday 23 May at 18:00
(Jovana Nedeljković and Radovan Cukić in conversation with Niclas Östlind and participating artists)
Exhibition period: 23 May – 9 June 2019
The transdisciplinary exhibition Travelling Communiqué was first shown at the Museum of Yugoslavia (MoY) in Belgrade in the summer of 2014 and it examines the role of one of the most important photographic archives of the 20th century, the archive of the cabinet of the life-long president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Josip Broz Tito. It was the first and most extensive project ever made taking the photographic archive of MoY as it’s point of departure including more than sixty works by forty authors from thirty-two countries created in various media: video essays, photographs, collages, photo walls, films, articles, lectures, documentary material.
The project was developed as a collective work by Armin Linke (Germany/Italy), Doreen Mende (Germany) and Milica Tomić (born in SFRY), in collaboration with the MoY team of curators (Radovan Cukić, Ivan Manojlović, Mirjana Slavković)
In May of 2019, the Travelling Communiqué exhibition will be shown in selected parts as a collaborative project between Museum of Yugoslavia and FG2.
The photographic archive of MoY encompasses the work of four photographers employed at the Cabinet of President Josip Broz Tito. Their cameras captured the activities of the former President from 1948, until his death in 1980. The Travelling Communiqué project points to the link between photographic protocols and the political network of a statesmen, or rather, the issues arising from the use of photographs as a means of legitimizing relations of (political) power. It addresses questions between photographs and political practice in socialist Yugoslavia and if a photograph then becomes an equal instrument of that political idea, on a level with political speech? The Photo Archive of Josip Broz Tito is the result of a collaboration between MoY’s curators and the Travelling Communiqué project, with the aim of offering a new way of interpreting, as well as a possible direction in analyzing the role of the photographic archive of Josip Broz Tito.
At the invitation of MoY, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt have gone through the archive in search of the one and only travel that President Tito made to Sweden. In addition to the eight journeys surveyed in the Travelling Communiqué exhibition, Källström and Fäldt explore the photographic material from the occasion when President Tito met with Prime Minister Olof Palme at Hagaparken in Stockholm in 1976. Through a comparative analysis of the photographs from Hagaparken found in the photographic archive of MoY and present time’s digital remains after the meeting, the search results extend well beyond the Cabinet’s control. The most searched-for information on the events in the park seem to concern a small incident with President Tito’s hand, an accident where his hand happens to be in the way of a closing car door. If search hits from the web are to be considered as a form of archaeological remains, the causal effect of what is left from the meeting is then a clamped limb.
In the FG2 exhibition and through the words of writer Johannes Wahlström, the injured hand in cropped format serves to ponder the strata of hypocrisy; once a theatrical act, subsequently turned into an age that finally sees its’ own end – an end that proves to be a great day to talk about the weather.
Photography on a Postcard (POAP) takes part at Photo London Fair to offer fair-goers the chance to own a one-off edition by a world renowned photographer.
Photographers taking part this year include Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Larry Clark, Max Pinckers, Nancy Burson, Rodger Ballen, Karen Knorr, Steve McCurry, Larry Fink, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Gerry Johansson, Alison Jackson, Todd Hido…
The auction runs 8th – 22nd May 2019.
All works will be exhibited at Photo London 16th – 20th May 2019
Through the support of Iaspis, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Program for Visual and Applied Artists, we (B-B-B-Books) are part of Miss Read, The Berlin Art Book Fair at Haus der Kulturen der Welt , during the weekend of 3-5 May 2019.
Klara and Thobias give a lecture and individual tutorials at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.
This course is a one-year full-time postgraduate course primarily for professional practitioners in the fields of art and photography. Through theory and practice, the course focuses on how to work with photographic material in relation to publications in a broad sense. Based on aspects such as democracy, activism and history, the course examines various publication strategies in an expanding field and a digital landscape.
In addition to working with the students’ independent projects, in relation to developing and preparing photographic material for publishing, teaching is conducted in the form of group seminars, individual and group tutorials, lectures and workshops. A study trip within Europe will also be arranged, including lectures, visits and meetings.
The aim of the course is that each student is able to find the most adequate way of publishing their respective photographic material. The publishing format may be a book, but the course is also open for other forms of publication in which new technologies present innovative opportunities.
Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, the prolific artist duo actively involved in the contemporary photo scene, will be discussing the works presented in Rest Assured in Unknown Places, an exhibition by the students of the MA in photography programme at Valand Academy.
After the talk, instead of a discussion with “everybody talking at the same time”, let us hear one strong voice on its own. And rather than opening up for questions from the public, meet the artists individually in a speed dating format where we will have the opportunity to get to know each other better.
Saturday December 15th, 3-5 pm
Galleri Format, Malmö
Book launch of PUBLISHED – the first survey of Swedish photobooks at Paris Photo Fair at Institute Suedois, Paris.
Author Niclas Östlind. Design: Greger Ulf Nilson. Cover image: Mikael Olsson.
Interviews with Anders Petersen, Carl Johan Erikson and Björn Larsson, Bruno Ehrs, Matilda Plöjel, Marie Lundquist, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, Greger Ulf Nilson, Elsa Modin, Mikael Olsson, Helene Boström and Charlotte Ekbom.
Aleix Plademunt, Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt and Johannes Wahlström The Swedish Matter – or the issue of the gramophone mind
In production with Per Nadén, Hanna Jacobsen and Barthélémy Garcia
FG2 presents its second exhibition at Föreningsgatan 2 in Gothenburg Opening: Thursday 1 November at 18:00
(Aleix Plademunt in conversation with Niclas Östlind and participating artists)
Exhibition period: 1 – 14 Nov 2018
Since 2013, Barcelona based photographer Aleix Plademunt has been working on MATTER, his most extensive photographic project so far. Deriving from mater, the Latin word for mother, matter refers to the substance from which all things are made. In English, the word matter can also indicate importance or significance – something to be concerned about. Matter itself is inert, without motion, unable to reproduce. But it leads to life. The Big Bang’s radical expansion created everything. During its life cycle, an organism undergoes many changes – it grows, learns, evolves and dies – but matter always remains. Matter is a constant. It was there from the beginning and it will remain long into the future. Humans emerged from one of the most recent evolutionary alignments in space and time. We have endeavoured to dominate and transform matter. Nevertheless, evolution is such a complex process that one can easily forget that it is only possible thanks to the precise imitation of original processes. The MATTER project analyses the age-old question of existence and how it pursues our origin.
FG2 (i.e the collaborations at Föreningsgatan 2) takes the starting point in an artist’s already existing body of work and finds its way through further investigations. For the occasion of Plademunt’s visit to Gothenburg, the trees in the MATTER project form a central role. A few years ago, Plademunt visited Sweden to take a photograph of the oldest tree on earth, a small pine on Fulufjället in the county of Dalarna. The Swedish Matter is the result of bringing MATTER into a specific historical and geopolitical position, of letting matter speak through it’s bare existence. The presence of a tree, both as a physical witness and/or in the shape of a safety match, reminds us of a Swedish history inseparable from the material of which it is inscribed.
On This Day by Thomas Sauvin, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt are part of Activating the Archive. Curated by Alejandro Acin and Isaac Blease | PH Museum
This online exhibition is part of the current IC Visual Lab programme Activating the Archive, which has included a symposium, workshops, talks, and an upcoming artistic commission. These events have been ongoing over an eight-month period and are supported by the Arts Council of England.
As part of the expanded Lucy Art Residency events program, artists Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt will join with Void on a 5-day workshop in the Greek city of Kavala.
Photographers and lens-based artists are invited to take part in this workshop, that will be divided in 2 complimentary phases:
Phase 1 – Tutored by Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, the participants will work on researching and producing a photographic project in Kavala. Klara & Thobias will work with the selected photographers on how to approach and deal with the discrepancy of the “Visible and the Spoken”, introducing them into how to approach this concept and how to use it as a primordial soup and help new forms emerge in photographs, narratives and ideas.
Phase 2 – Tutored by the Void team, the participants will produce a book dummy from the imagery produced on the first days. The idea is to take the narratives and concepts explored with Klara & Thobias into the concrete object realm: the book. Edited, designed and bound from scratch, a dummy will be produced and presented to the public during the Lucy Art Residency Talks on the last day of the workshop.
The ultimate aim of the 5-day workshop is to span the execution of a photographic process from its seed theoretical perspective, to the concrete workmanship final form of a book making. Working on all façades of the photographic narrative: from the concepts and questions raised before the shutter is even pressed, to the sequencing and design of a publication.
Our goal is to have a group of both locals and visitors to the city, as one of the purposes of the workshop is to pair and confront distinctive views about the same subject: the attached and knowledgeable view of those who are familiar with Kavala and its stories vs. the visitors’ gaze and their new perceptions and paradigms.
Neither are true or false, right or wrong. And we believe this workshop will help to build, in a proportion of 1 + 1 = 3, the best result out of it.
Thomas Sauvin, Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt On This Day 2018
Photopaper 29|30
No History, No Problem
As long as it is not interfered with, supply and demand is a self-regulating relationship that creates balance. That is the simple idea of liberal market economies. But, in financial transactions between producers and consumers, or sellers and buyers, there are sometimes costs that are not calculated into monetary exchanges. These are known as negative externalities.
When you purchase a garment in a store, neither you nor the store pay for the pollution of rivers, stemming from cotton production or fabric treatment. Neither you nor the store pay for cleaning up the generated waste once the garment has been disposed of. Nor do either of you pay for the depletion of natural resources needed for production and transportation, or the cost of educating skilled labour. These, and many other examples of negative externality have a common denominator: privatization of profit and collectivization of costs.
Since that which is not private is often unregulated in the market economy, it is either non-existent or considered to be inherently free to be exploited. Proponents of free market economy see the problem of negative externality as a sign of insufficient freedom of the market. Issues of deforestation, water and air pollution and a general destruction of the biosphere can according to this argument be solved if all of the above are internalized into the economy and given a monetary value. If everything is private, the argument goes, then nothing can be free. If nothing is free, then nothing can be negatively externalized. Since neither our lives nor our future have a price, they are therefore free to be negatively externalized. The same goes for our history.
Much like libraries of the past, search engines are the arbiters of knowledge in the digital world, albeit functioning in a free market economy. In order to generate profit from our search for information, these engines have created a set of algorithms that per definition feed audiences with the lowest common denominator of relevance for the greatest amount of people. Paired with a self-perpetuating reinforcement. Or another way of putting it: different people can be interested in different information, but if cats are universally appealing, cats will be prominently displayed. And if there is a demand for cats, algorithms will provide with even more cats. This is the equivalent of food stores displaying candy in the most prominent shelves, expanding into other sections, and gradually replacing all other goods as the most appealing, self-reinforced, lowest common denominator amongst consumers.
While the transaction between ourselves and the arbiters of knowledge provide us with access to free information, and hefty profits for the arbiters, history bares the cost of negative externality.
But if there is no collective history, then our private knowledge of history cannot be negatively externalized. Or to paraphrase a quote without its historic recollection: no history, no problem.
— Text by Johannes Wahlström —
PHOTOPAPER nominated Thomas Sauvin, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt for this special issue. It has 32 pages. Images above showing selected pages.
Thomas Sauvin – Works from Beijing Silvermine
Thomas Sauvin, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt – On This Day
Location: FG2 / Föreningsgatan 2, Gothenburg, Sweden
Presentation and panel discussion: Wednesday 23 May at 16:00
(Thomas Sauvin in conversation with Niclas Östlind and participating artists)
Opening: Wednesday 23 May 2018 at 18:00
Exhibition: 23 May – 13 June 2018
In May 2018, Sauvin is invited to the newly opened exhibition space FG2 in Gothenburg to show a selection of works based on the Silvermine archive. Including the meticulously carried out album “Xian / 线” among other projects such as “Until Death Do Us Part / 双喜” and “Silvermine Albums”, the exhibition forms the most extensive presentation of Sauvin’s work so far in Sweden. For this occasion, the artist has invited the founders of FG2, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, to interact with the archive. The exhibition has found its form through a collaborative process between the three artists and Nadén Arkitektur who has produced the exhibition at Nadén Snickeri. Comprised by a selection of texts entitled “No History, No Problem” by writer Johannes Wahlström and photographs from the Beijing Silvermine, the new project “On This Day” is the result of a collaborative work starting from the idea of the ‘Silvermine archive meets Onthisday.com – ”the world’s largest historical events online database” ‘.
PUBLISHED
Photobooks in Sweden
The Hasselblad Foundation
February 24–May 6 2018
The exhibition is part of the ongoing research project Photography in Print & Circulation, which is a collaboration between the Hasselblad Foundation and Valand Academy. The project will end in the autumn of 2018 with a comprehensive publication about the photobook in Sweden.
Published is curated by Niclas Östlind, Valand Academy, in collaboration with Elsa Modin and Louise Wolthers from the Hasselblad Foundation.
Artist-in-Residence at AiR Trieste. Granted thorough Iaspis in Sweden.
AiR Trieste is an artist-in-residence program that aims at offering visual artists the opportunity to spend an amount of time in Trieste to develop projects relevant to the context or carry out research that may employ, and add value to, local resources. AiR Trieste considers the network as instrument for research and growth and the artists as agents of cultural cross-contamination. The project is curated by Francesca Lazzarini in collaboration with MLZ Art Dep and Cultural Inventory.
”Édition & Surveillance”
Booksignings and talks with Thomas Mailaender (Parental Advisory), Esther Hovers (False Positives), Klara Källstrom et Thobias Fäldt (Wikiland 2 & 3) and Thomas Albdorf (General view)
Saturday 13/01 – From 4PM to 6PM at Le Bal
The Wikiland Project at the Surveilance Index Ehibition Compiled by Mark Ghuneim.
Le Bal, 6, Impasse de la Défense, Paris, France
2018-01-10 – 2018-01-20
The Last of The Lucky / You Can’t Always Get What You Want chosen as one of the “personal favorites” (2017) at Lensculure:
The Last of the Lucky is an extremely elegant book with no frills. Through its masterly use of different narrative material, such as photographs, tweets, newspaper covers and so on, offers the reader a highly evocative story, full of multiple readings, reflections. Starting from a personal anecdote, the authors convey the political conflict between the island of Cuba and the neighboring American giant into a dimension that is both poetic and political. One of the most powerful books of the year.
—Ramon Pez
Creative Director and Founder, Ramon Pez Studio
Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt are part of Unseen Amsterdam 2017 and the inaugural edition of CO-OP, a space exclusively dedicated to cutting edge to artist collectives and artist-run initiatives, selected by the independent curator Lars Willumeit and Unseen Artistic Director Emilia van Lynden.
A SEMINAR ABOUT THE IMAGE AS ART, PHILISOPHY AND POLITICS
Friday, 8 September 2017, 09:00-16:00
at Kulturhuset, Youngs gate 6, Oslo
SPEAKERS
Alexander Carnera – writer and essayist based in Copenhagen (Moderator)
Presentation: Becoming who you are – Photography as a Way of Thinking
Klara Källström – Artist and publisher, based in Stockholm
Presentation: The Gap Between what is Visible and what is Told
Beathe C. Rønning – Artist and writer, based in Sande
Presentation: Is this Real Life?
Lars Willumeit – Curator and art educator, based in Zurich
Presentation: Imagineering – (Re-)activating the Photographic
A SEMINAR ABOUT THE IMAGE AS ART, PHILISOPHY AND POLITICS
Friday, 8 September 2017, 09:00-16:00
at Kulturhuset, Youngs gate 6, Oslo
SPEAKERS
Alexander Carnera – writer and essayist based in Copenhagen (Moderator)
Presentation: Becoming who you are – Photography as a Way of Thinking
Klara Källström – Artist and publisher, based in Stockholm
Presentation: The Gap Between what is Visible and what is Told
Beathe C. Rønning – Artist and writer, based in Sande
Presentation: Is this Real Life?
Lars Willumeit – Curator and art educator, based in Zurich
Presentation: Imagineering – (Re-)activating the Photographic
Arles 2017 by Carlos Spottorno – avec Pierre Bessard, Lars Willumeit, Sebastian Arthur Hau, Rémi Coignet, Klara Källström, Eduardo Nave et Thobias Fäldt.
The Lucy Art Residency Public Talks that took place at the Archeological Museum of Kavala on the 17th of June.
Speakers include the artists Sylvain Couzinet Jacques, Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, Curator at FOAM Museum Kim Knoppers and Curator at TATE Shoair Mavlian.
Uncensored Books Venue 3: A specific on-site installation of Uncensored Books in the Botanical Garden of Palermo during the Una Marina di Libri Book Festival.
A project in collaboration with Minimum Studio, June 8-11, 2017.
Installations by Valentina Abenavoli (Akina Books) Francesco Amorosino (self-published), Julián Barón (KWY Ediciones), Lewis Bush (dummy/Brave Books), Thobias Fäldt / Klara Källström (B-B-B-Books), Brad Feuerhelm (Chaco Books), Amak Mahmoodian (ICVL Studio / RRB Publishing), Christof Nuessli (Cpress) and Lorenzo Tricoli (Skinnerboox / D&Books).
SELF PUBLISH RIGA 2017
11 – 14 May, opening week of Riga Photomonth 2017
K. K. fon Stricka villa, Aristida Briāna 9
THE PROGRAMME INCLUDES:
An installation The Last of The Lucky/ You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Swedish artists Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt; an extensive exhibition featuring several photobook collections, including Facts and Clarifications and Latvian photobooks and photobook dummies curated by Evita Goze (ISSP, Latvia), books from the Balkans curated by Marina Paulenka (Organ Vida, Croatia), a collection of books by Sputnik Photos (Poland) and works by Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt (B-B-B-Books, Sweden).
Klara & Thobias are part of the project POIUYT which is launched at the Galleria Michela Rizzo on May 11th in Venice during the opening weekend of the Venice Biennale 2017
POIUYT is a research platform on images that aims at spreading a critical approach towards such key language in the contemporary world through reflection, collective exchange and participation.
The exhibition 45 Gardeners And So On by Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt in collaboration with Johannes Wahlström will be open on Saturday December 17th at 19h in the cultural center Magacin u Kraljevića Marka in Belgrade.
A set of nearly 15 new talks between Rémi Coignet and major players in contemporary photography : Erik Kessels, Gerhard Steidl, Martin Parr, Stéphanie Solinas, Joan Fontcuberta, Patrick Faigenbaum, Aron Mörel, Akio Nagasawa, Greger Ulf Nilson, Christian Patterson, Lise Sarfati, Alec Soth, Eric Tabuchi, Bertien van Manen, Mariken Wessels, Daniel Blaufuks, Pieter Hugo, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt.
Wikiland 2007-07-12 – 00:59:46 is part of the exhibition Bending the Frame based on Fred Ritchin’s book with the same title.
With the exhibition Bending the Frame Fotografisk Center focuses on documentary photography that seeks to make a difference and to set an agenda. Can photography tell us something new about the world we live in, the exhibition seems to ask. Based on the American professor Fred Ritchin’s book
Bending the Frame and in cooperation with him and the Danish photographer Tina Enghoff, Fotografisk Center has curated an exhibition that focuses on current global issues such as war, migration, racism, climate change etc. In Bending the Frame we show photography, video, film, books, and internet-based projects of international and Nordic photographers and visual artists. The exhibition includes both older and new works. The idea is to present strategies within visual art, documentary and journalistic photography, which convey other stories than the ones we often meet in conventional news media.
Runs between August 27th – October 23rd at Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen as part of Denmark’s international Photo Biennale.
Källström and Fäldt will be among the reviewers of the Portfolio Reviews II on June 4 at SALT Ulus, organized in collaboration between SALT and Geniş Açı Project Office (GAPO).
Imagineering—(Re)activating the Photographic: Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt / “Werker Magazine” / Discipula
Opening dates: 15.05−21.08.2016
Curator: Lars Willumeit
Venue: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
Exhibition within the framework of Kraków Photomonth Festival
The (Un)becomings of Photography —
On Reaggregating and Reassembling the Photographic and its Institutions
(Foundation for Visual Arts, 2016)
Lars Willumeit 2016
With contributions by: Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Paul Graham, Yann Mingard, Max Pinckers, John Tagg, Duncan Forbes, The Photocaptionist, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Discipula, Adam Mazur, Annekathrin Kohout, Iris Sikking, Werker Magazine, Sputnik Photos and #Dysturb.
“Crisis? What Crisis?!” is the main theme of the 14th edition of Krakow Photomonth, Europe’s leading photography festival. The Main Program is curated by Lars Willumeit, German curator and social anthropologist.
WHAT’S THIS BOOK? at Kulturforum for Belgrade Photography Month. Belgrade, April 15-29, 2016
WHAT’S THIS BOOK? was a selection of some of the most relevant photobooks published between 2014 and 2016. Eclectic at heart, the exhibition displayed around twenty-five photobooks. It was accompanied by a showcase of prints and audiovisual material. Though the show should not be considered a definitive and axiomatic catalogue but rather a personal and subjective selection of favourites, its intention was to highlight a wide array of approaches, philosophies and practices in the area of international photobook production, placing at the focus of its research small independent publishers next to photographers who self-publish and distribute their printed works. The show covered diverse topics, with the aim to engage the public with the practice of publishing, while familiarizing it with the present state of the photobook that is quite indicative of tendencies in contemporary photography. At the same time, with its parallel activities (a three-hour workshop and guided tour), WHAT’S THIS BOOK created an educational forum for local artists, editors, and publishers, wherein they were able to exchange ideas and improve their strategies and projects. A guided tour and a photolovers encounter became part of the project.
Photobooks by: Toni Amengual (self-published, Spain) / Israel ARIÑO (Ediciones Anómalas, Spain) / Alessandro CALABRESE (Skinnerboox, Italy) / Federico CLAVARINO (Dalpine, Spain) / Simone DONATI (TerraProject, Italy) / Thobias FÄLDT – Klara KÄLLSTRÖM (B-B-B-Books, Sweden) / Satoshi FUJIWARA (AMANA, Japan) / Ryuichi ISHIKAWA (AKAAKA, Japan) / Luce LEBART (Poursuite, France) / Eriko KOGA (AKAAKA, Japan) / Salva LÓPEZ (Terranova, Spain) / Henrik MALMTRÖM (Kominek Books, Germany) / Daniel MAYRIT (Riot Books, Spain) / Emi NAKATA (AKAAKA, Japan) / Marco Paltrinieri (Discipula, Italy/UK) / Vicente PAREDES (This Book is True, Spain) / Eufália C. PAZ (Stephanian, Italy) / Mariela SANCARI (La Fábrica, Spain) / Thomas SAUVIN (Jiazazhi, China) / Ikuro SUZUKI (AKAAKA, Japan) / Miguel Ángel TORNERO (Editorial RM, Spain) / Lorenzo TRICOLI (Self-published, Italy) / Dragana YURISIC (Oonagh Young Gallery, Ireland).
Fotobokskväll fredag8 april på Kungl. Konsthögskolan
Föreläsningar om fotografi, böcker och skapande med Carl Johan De Geer, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt.
Carl Johan De Geer – bortom begreppen bra och dåligt. Om det vardagliga dokumenterandet och ett helt livs konstnärskap.
Klara Källström och Thobias Fäldt arbetar med fotografi, text, installation och bokutgivning. De var nyligen nominerade till Svenska Fotobokspriset 2016 med sin dubbel betitlade bok Village/Kanata.
När: Fredag 8 april, 18.00-22.00 Var: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Flaggmansvägen 1, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm FULLBOKAT!
I Klara Källströms och Thobias Fäldts gemensamma arbete A Beach blir fragment av kakelplattor, funna på en badstrand i Jaffa, utgångspunkten för en berättelse med många bottnar. Strandfynden är rester av hus som tidigare funnits på platsen, men vilka har raserats och använts som fyllningsmaterial. Likt förträngda upplevelser återkommer skärvorna som en påminnelse om det som har varit. Hur platsen och husen såg ut 1880 finns skildrat i ett fotografi av fransmannen Félix Bonfils – en av flera europeiska fotografer som vid denna tid var verksamma i Mellanöstern och producerade bilder för den tidiga turistnäringen. Ett original av Bonfils bild utgör en av verkets många delar, som också rymmer en artist book med text av Johannes Wahlström, objekt, vykort och fotografier av Källström och Fäldt. Tillsammans skapar delarna en väv av referenser som synliggör hur historiens och nutidens olika lager samexisterar och bryts mot varandra.
En antikhandel är en plats där ting från andra tider och rum blir omhändertagna och finner nya ägare och sammanhang. Vad Källströms och Fäldts arbete också väcker frågor om är hur kulturella och ekonomiska värden skapas genom konstnärliga val och bearbetningar och platsen där det hela äger rum.
Curatorer: Joakim Geiger & Niclas Östlind
Onsdag den 16 september 2015 kl 17.00 – 20.00
eller
Lördag den 19 september 2015, kl 14.00–17.00
Skajs Antikhandel, Nybrogatan 3
mikael.skaj@telia.com 0708-704498
Finissage:
samtal om utställningen, söndag den 27 september kl 15-16
för mer info www.skajsantikhandel.com
THE OVERVIEW EFFECT
26.09.15 – 01.11.15
Galleri Format, Malmö
Prospect as part of the exhibition The Overview Effect at Galleri Format in Malmö.
Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt follow up on the media depiction of the Greek crisis, continuing an ongoing project that started with Europe, Greece, Athens, Acropolis in 2011.
Prospect is a prequel to the work 25 Lemon Trees, No Gardeners that will be released in 2016.
KLARA KÄLLSTRÖM & THOBIAS FÄLDT | VILLAGE / HIGH HILLS
February 27 – April 25, 2015
Opening Reception/Book Launch: February 27, 6–8PM
CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions
1217 B Fell St, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA
CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is pleased to present Village / High Hills, an exhibition of photography and related artifacts by Stockholm-based artists Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, on view from February 27 through April 25. For this project––whose title refers to “Kali Forno,” the alleged indigenous name for California that describes its mountainous terrain––Källström and Fäldt will conduct a site-specific photographic exploration centered around San Francisco’s Mission district, applying their characteristic methods of cultural and historical research to reveal the distinctive identity of this iconic neighborhood at a time of flux and rapid transition. In addition to twenty images from an earlier iteration of the same body of work, the exhibition will feature several photographs produced specifically for this show. Källström and Fäldt‘s practice is rooted in contemporary documentary photography, in particular the idea of the photograph as visual diary or travelogue, as well as in the belief that the subtlest cultural differences are sometimes more easily perceived from an outsider’s perspective.
For Village / High Hills, the artists take as a jumping-off point an earlier photographic series entitled Village (2014), for which they spent three months photographing sites in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Ontario. The opening reception of the exhibition at CULT will also celebrate the publication of an eponymic photobook produced as part of this project. With a traveler’s inquisitiveness, Källström and Fäldt captured images in diverse locations, focusing on narratives surrounding the colonization of Canada and how indigenous and imported languages have evolved over time. The artists found that the Francophone population resisted giving up their French in favor of English, while the indigenous people have been marginalized to the extent that today their language is almost completely invisible. In order to highlight and address these linguistic and cultural omissions, Källström and Fäldt chose to caption their photographs using each location’s original indigenous name, translated into colonial languages. By using the pre-colonial names, the artists sought to render visible that which has been lost in what they call “the blind spots of contemporary society.”
In Village / High Hills, Källström and Fäldt will use similar methods of cultural investigation to examine how the Mission district––and, by extension, the greater San Francisco Bay Area––has evolved over the years, and will work to unearth and explore hidden meanings by documenting, naming, and cataloguing images they will capture in an on-site exploration in the weeks prior to the opening of the exhibition. Village / High Hills will also feature a first-edition copy of Robert Frank’s seminal book Les Américans, the result of the Swiss-born photographer’s coast-to-coast journey across the United States in the 1950s. Källström and Fäldt’s work continues in Frank’s tradition of exploring the personal poetics of lived experience, and the ways in which the subjectivities of the individual subject, photographer, and viewer shape cultural meaning on a broad scale.
The photographic discourse inherent in this work is dependent upon a rich system of cultural signs and signifiers. Källström and Fäldt’s work aims to investigate and expose the symbols by which the photographic message is composed. By questioning and disassembling the medium’s traditional narrative entities and then amassing them anew, the artists aim to deepen our comprehension of the myriad ways in which we witness the world around us.
Wikiland is included in The Open book revisited. 2004-2014
Ten years ago, the photo book as object was acknowledge for the first time through the exhibition ”The Open Book” at Hasselblad Center. The exhibition was a manifestation of the most important and influential photo books in history and showed 175 books published between 1845 and 2003.
On Wednesday 19 November, we would like to draw attention to this anniversary by presenting what we think are the best photo books, which have been published since 2004.
Klara Källström och Thobias Fäldt Fotografiska Essäer 2011–2014
11 juni–6 sept
Verket has the honor of presenting an exhibition by photographers Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt.The duo works from a documentary approach with a distinct and own aesthetic.With a critical questioning and reflecting on how the world around them is presented, they turn the camera towards less obvious objects.The result is photographic essays with contemporary and historical considerations that explore the limits of photography.
The exhibition shows five series from 2011 to 2014 by Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt.Throughout the projects, Källström and Fäldt also collaborate with Johannes Wahlström and the designers 1: 2: 3.
Klara and Thobias are part of The Photographer’s Playbook
Edited by Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern
Published by Aperture.
”The best way to learn is by doing. The Photographer’s Playbook features photography assignments, as well as ideas, stories and anecdotes from many of the world’s most talented photographers and photography professionals. Whether you’re looking for exercises to improve your craft–alone or in a group–or you’re interested in learning more about the medium, this playful collection will inspire fresh ways of engaging with photographic process. Inside you will find advice for better shooting and editing, creative ways to start new projects, games and activities and insight into the practices of those responsible for our most iconic photographs”
De: Stockholm ➟ Features the work of Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt, Lars Tunbjörk, Brendan Austin, Marcus Harrling, Linda Hofvander, Inka and Niclas, Björn Larsson, Hanna Ljungh, Märta Thisner and Erik Undehn
De: Stockholm ➟ is published by Rollergirl, a collaboration between two graphic designers: Amsterdam based Harry Bloch and Zürich based Jacques Borel.
Wikiland at Riga Photomonth 2014
8 May – 5 June
Riga Art Space / Riga City Exhibition Hall
Riga Photomonth 2014 offers a rich program of exhibitions, artist talks, project in urban space, portfolio review, discussions and other activities. The thematic core of the Photomonth is the “Viewfinders. Baltic and Nordic Contemporary Photography” exhibition, running from 8 May until 5 June at Riga Art Space. The exhibition will provide an overview of the latest trends in contemporary photography in the Nordic and Baltic countries, focusing on the quest for the self in contemporary urban space. The exhibition will showcase the work of Lars Tunbjörk (Sweden), Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt (Sweden), Sara Bjarland (Finland), Marge Monko (Estonia), Paul Kuimet (Estonia), Astrid Kruse Jensen (Denmark), Marie Sjøvold (Norway), Pétur Thomsen (Icelnad), Mindaugas Ažušilis (Lithuania), Indre Šerpytyte (Lithuania), Sarah Gerats (Norway), Joachim Fleinert (Denmark), Ieva Epnere (Latvia), Ivars Gravlejs (Latvia).
Klara and Thobias are part of 2014 Frames with A Beach, Wikiland and Russian Bang during Glasgow International Art Festival at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA).
Opening: Sunday 6th April 2014, 19:00
Centre for Contemporary Arts
350 Sauchiehall Street
Glasgow G2 3JD
United Kingdom
Wikiland is part of the book / exhibition
The visible – Swedish contemporary photography
Artipelag
7 february – 11 may 2014
About the book:
”This richly illustrated double-volume is published to coincide with the exhibition ‘Between Realities: Photography in Sweden 1970-2000’ in Gothenburg. The range of featured photographers, active in Sweden in recent decades, reflects the pivotal trends and changes taking place in the field, and offers a history of photography in the country told through multiple voices and by key figures from the various periods. Using carefully selected examples of work, past exhibitions, historical documents and critical analyses, it provides an exhaustive history of how various ideals, positions and trends have shaped Swedish practice, from artistic to documentary and commercial approaches.”
