Forum1: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

 

During the spring of 2005 a group of recently educated artists decided to establish themselves in Trondheim. Why is it that they have decided to stay when until now the first goal for former art students has been to get away from the city as quickly as possible? Can Trondhiem offer artists the same potential for growth and development as Oslo, Berlin, London or New York? As an artist here do you face different challenges and possibilities than in those and other larger cities?

Marienborg is a group of newly established artists who want to bring new possibilities in relation to their personal work. We want to think and act in a new way in terms of our role as artists in Trondheim and also start a debate about contemporary art. One of our goals is to find a number of different ways to create temporary spaces for young artists to work in the city; and that this could become a new arena for artistic expression.

For the occasion of Forum 1 we would like to invite you as an art critic and consultant to Trondheim. In What are you doing here? the artists who are part of Marienborg will show their personal work and also collaborative projects. During this period we will work together with you critics in ways that are site specific with a common goal, to activate the city. We would like you to investigate what kind of role you can have and look at what possibilities there are for mediating between the city and us. The starting point for this investigation is the current situation in Trondheim, and the art that will be presented for Forum 1.

The current situation in Trondheim

Contemporary art in Trondheim has until now had a very low profile; there is no tradition here in taking part or experiencing this sort of culture. It is a language that has been almost non-existent both visually and in terms of intelligent media exposure and debate. In Trondheim there is virtually no arena for young contemporary art except a few players working within a limited scope. Very few people in the city are even aware that there is an art academy here, let alone that there are international artists working with Trondheim as a base. The few active organisations are struggling to get people through their doors.
At the same time the city council has a political goal of using art and culture as one of trademarks of Trondheim’s new identity. There is also a plan to build a Kunsthall (centre for contemporary art), by 2014. What kind of image this will have and how it will be run has not yet been decided. A proposal has been made that it should be located at Dora 1, an industrial warehouse that was originally built as u-boat bunker by the Nazi’s during World War 2. The debate about this has just started (see www.tt.teks.no). On the Trondheim airport bus the county council and their new initiative Kreative Trønderlag, is advertising their vision: Trønderlag, the most exiting region in future Europe” (www.stfk.no).

Our experience is that the disparity between these visions and the actual situation is very wide. This creates a worrying but potentially exiting gap. The situation could open up possibilities and generate new working opportunities for artists in Trondheim, and also create a space for initiatives like Marienborg. So what happens in a situation like this?
Trondheim city council are spending 7-12 million Norwegian Kroner on public art works each year. One initiative they are funding is Generator, a collaborative project between the council and Trønderlags senter for samtidskunst. This is an art project that “wishes to explore, expand and challenge the frames for art on the public space (www.generator2007.no). Trondheim Electroniske Kunstsenter (TEKS) has started developing an international art Biennale, MetaMorph, as a continuation of Trondheim Matchmaking (symposium for art and new technology, www.teks.no). These are a few examples from the city councils culture plan 2005-2010

We ask ourselves: what role will the artist have in the vision of art as a trademark of Trondheim? We wonder how they will anchor these visions in the population of Trondheim and the current identity of the city? We also want to raise questions concerning whether it is possible for an artist to work in a free, critical and reflective way with the support of the community as a step toward creating a new identity for the city. In addition to this we think it is about time to incorporate some critique into the discussion about the future of art in Trondheim.
Art generates critique, critique generates discussion, discussion generates engagement, engagement generates a meeting, and through the meeting between people we can ask others and ourselves:

- What are you doing here?