Trondheim Kunstmuseum presents SAMMEN/TOGETHER, an exhibition on view 20 July–23 September 2012.
SAMMEN/TOGETHER is an international exhibition examining aspects of human communality in an age of cultural divide and conflict. SAMMEN wants to be propaganda for the good, standing in the shadow of evil. It intends to be a call for other human fellowships than those based on nation or ethnicity. Contributing artists are Sergey Bratkov (RUS), COMPANY (FIN/KOR), AK Dolven (NOR/UK), Nina Fischer & Maroan El-Sani (GER), Leif Holmstrand (SWE), Preben Holst (NOR/DEN), Sanna Kannisto (FIN), Nikolai Bendix Skyum Larsen (DEN/UK), Henrietta Lehtonen (FIN), Ernesto Neto (BRA), Rivane Neuenschwander (BRA), Adrian Paci (ALB/ITA), and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (KOR/US). The exhibition is curated by the director of Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Pontus Kyander.
Adrian Paci, Turn on, 2004. Single channel video projection, color, sound, 3:30 minutes
The exhibition SAMMEN/TOGETHER approaches human communality on a variety of levels. Society and most human existence is based on some sort of communality, the more sophisticated the society, the more invisible and intrinsic does this communality seem to become. Our lives are woven into one texture, which we sometimes hardly notice and therefore take for granted. Until—for instance—disaster strikes. Suddenly we are moved back to the fundamentals of our lives. The sheer facts of being alive, of sharing pain, loss, uncertainty, despair, hope. For a moment we are forced together under one huge shared experience. We did not ask for it, we did not expect it. It came uninvited.
The exhibition SAMMEN/TOGETHER deals with basic human conditions like life and death from very general and fundamental aspects. By approaching these issues, the exhibition wants to address our need to build hope, to construct images and symbols that can be used as tools to come to grips with our most painful experiences. It is sometimes said that people die for a cause, and that they die for the living. But it is more certain that those alive are forced to live for the dead.
The exhibition SAMMEN/TOGETHER is also intended as a manifestation against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and religious dogmatism in an age that sees one brutal act after the other being committed in the names of nation, ethnicity, and religion. It gives above all voice for an open and inclusive society. This approach is not an indication of how any of the individual works should or even could be understood—at least none of the works can be reduced and simplified in this way. It is rather an indication of the perspective from which it has been initiated, which deliberately wants to stand out as a manifestation for the good in humanity and society, in a time when propaganda for destruction, dehumanization, and exclusion of groups and individuals has become commonplace even in regular newspapers.
The intention of the exhibition is to look forward, to invigorate hope, to trigger a critical discussion on issues particularly of nation and nationality. It speaks for human values and shared humanity. It will be a dignified exhibition, but it also wants to challenge and influence. It is propaganda for the good.
Trondheim Kunstmuseum
TKM Bispegata
Bispegata 7b
7018 Trondheim, Norway
www.tkm.museum.no
