Swedish artist group Local A. have created an installation and a performance to exhibit (the question) and (the answer), a new phase of their travelling project (the question) concluded during their residency at IFP.
(the question) is a participatory project composed of workshops in which participants are instructed to create portraits of themselves in clay at a public location or in a space designed by the artists. While emphasizing the process of creation and reflection rather than the outcome, the self-portraits could be seen as a way of displaying the individual’s connection to, or footprint on society, just in the way artists have used the self-portrait throughout art history to relate to the position they have occupied in society and in physical space. The workshops, which Local A. regarded as performances in their own right, were documented to be included in the video piece that is shown in a new version for every occasion of exhibiting (the question).
In addition to the self-portraits, Local A. also asked collaborators to write down the most pressing question they were carrying with them at that moment. Through the places where the project has been developed and exhibited – Stockholm and Gävle in Sweden, Jerusalem and Hofit in Israel and in Istanbul – (the question) has become a sponge for picking up some random but urgent questions of our time.
For the occasion of exhibiting (the question) in Beijing, Local A. decided to address their accumulation of questions by asking the staff and collaborators of IFP to answer a few questions each. This way they attempt to give the project, which until now has been seen as indefinite, some closure. The result is seen in the exhibition and the video (the question)(the answer).
The Swedish artists Jenny Berntsson and Felice Hapetzeder work together as artist group Local A. involving groups of people in the original creation of art through workshops. Local A. calls their process Workshop as Research. At the opening Jenny Berntsson will perform a self-portrait in clay as a quiet speech to herself, the audience and the space.
October 24th - Nov 1st
Opening and performance Saturday October 24th at 4 pm
Black Sesame Space
Heizhima hutong 13