Public program in connection with Marie Fahlin’s exhibition Centauring, 18 April 2pm.
Conversation: Riding in the Expanded Field. With Lena Oja, Aase Berg, Paula von Seth and Pernilla Zetterman.
18 April 2021
Riding in the Expanded Field
This practice has been called The Art of Riding for the last 2000 years; but what does that concept consist of if regarded as a contemporary artistic practice?
If we choose to consider equestrian art as a new artistic practice it requires us to explore this practice within the premises of the artist talk. This talk can be regarded as an initial survey of the general characteristics of this space, the outer boundaries and assumed consequences. How do we navigate in this new found practice while staying within an artistic context? How does our choice of perspective change the actual outcome of our equestrian actions and results? The horse will be the same but if the road travelled is based on our artistic practice we can assume that it changes the outcome of the actual equestrian actions.
The precision of the artistic talk combined with the physical equestrian experience is the background for inviting to this discussion. The horse is obviously the main criteria of the existence of this practice, but if riding horses shall be considered as an artistic practice the horse is a co-artist; and that space in between may be where this field will become visible.
Aase Berg is a poet and essayist based in Stockholm. She is also a literary critic and writes predominantly in Dagens Nyheter. Since her debut with Hos rådjur [With Deer] in 1997, she has published several collections of poetry and essays as well as novels. Many of her books take a poetic-political hold of the dissolving boundaries between nature and culture, and between animals, humans and machines.
Lena Oja is an artist and writer mainly focusing on writing as a vital creative tool in different fields of artistic practice. She has explored how the technical aspects of the schooling of a horse changes if you look upon riding as if it were art. The project The importance of earnestness in a borne agreement between horse and human, focuses on how the artistic context actually highlights and changes the outcome and quality of the equestrian experience.
Paula von Seth is an artist, art educator and curator. Her photographies, performances, videos and sculptures explore contemporary postcolonial and ecological value systems, and art as a tool for creating common resources and visions. She is a co-writer of Commons in Cape Town (2013). Currently von Seth studies rural development and agricultural sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and participate in a research programme in environmental communication there.
Pernilla Zetterman lives and works in Stockholm. She has exhibited at Gallery Taik, Fotomuseum Winterthur, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Artipelag, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotografiska and the Hasselblad Center, among other places. Zetterman has been a researcher in photography at Aalto-University in Helsinki and holds a MFA from the University of Arts, Craft and Design, Stockholm and a BFA in Photography and film from University of Gothenburg. She is a laureate of the Victor Fellowship from the Hasselblad Foundation.