THE ROAMING INSTITUTE, Session 3: Malin Ståhl

As part of the program for the exhibition The Promise at Index, participants of the course Modernist Legacies and Constructions of Whiteness (Kungl. Konsthögskolan, 2016–2017) present a project titled The Roaming Institute.

The Roaming Institute consists of a series of walks through the city which continue the research of the course, reflecting on the traces of modernist architecture and urban planning in Stockholm, and its entanglement with normative concepts of subjectivity. The walks invite the audience to discover new perspectives of the city and its surroundings and opening discussions about some of the unfulfilled promises of modernism.

Each of the 6 sessions is conceived around a specific topic and led by different participants from the course, or in conversation with invited guests. The walks will take place on weekly, every Saturday from 29 July to 2 September. Start of the walks is, unless otherwise mentioned, at Index, Kungsbro Strand 19.

Session 3: Malin Ståhl, Unorganised Space Conversations

Meeting point: Index, Kungsbro Strand 19
Duration: 1 hour

Unorganised Space Conversations is a walk in the direct vicinity of Index, probing sites where the nature contest the imposed structure of modernist city planning. The conversations of the walk will be looking at the city from the perspective of areas that evade city planning, pockets of untended nature in the urban environment. From a human perspective these spaces are unorganised, but the nature that inhabits them is indifferent to what we think of as ideal and successful.

Through the writings of Elsa Beskow in “Blomsterfesten i täppan” and Gunnel Ginsburg’s “Ogräs. Känn igen och ta bort”, which explain how to identify weeds and remove them, we will examine how the Western world strives to organise and categorise nature and how plants in their turn grow where the habitat suits them. We will engage in close readings in the neighbourhoods of Index and how we relate to resilience, margins, and control.

Malin Ståhl is a visual artist and her artistic work departs in the practice of performance, frequently situating the pieces within settings of the natural landscape.

Further dates

Sat 19 August 2017, 16:00
Session 4: Roberto N Peyre and Det gror i betongen

Sat 26 August 2017, 16:00
Session 5: Natalia Rebelo

Sat 2 September 2017, 16:00
Session 6: Mourad Kouri and Ola Andersson

Coordinators:
Alba Baeza, Jasmine Hinks

The course Modernist Legacies and Constructions of Whiteness took place in autumn 2016/17 at Kungl. Konsthögskolan in collaboration with Index, with Samira Ariadad, Donatella Bernardi, Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Tobias Hübinette.