The artist run initiative Slipvillan started in 2007 and is located on the former prison island Långholmen in the middle of Stockholm, Sweden. Slipvillan is run by 12 professional artists and is both a working place with studios as well as a place for exhibitions, art-projects, talks, courses and meetings. It is an old traditional house with a large garden that at summertime hosts a larger exhibition with invitied emerging artists. The house also contains a studio for artists in residence. The 5 artists from Slipvillan that now exhibit at ruimteCAESUUR are or have been members of the larger artist run initiative Studio 44 in Stockholm and has through that orgainisation done projects in various constellations with exhibitions in China, Germany, Finland, England and other places in Sweden. Conflux is a project by the artists Madeleine Aleman, Jannike Brantås, Rikard Fåhraeus, Laetitia Deschamps Fåhraeus and Masoud Shahsavari from the artist-run organization Slipvillan in Stockholm. They also work together at gallery Studio44 Sthlm. The exhibition Conflux shows an intriguing look at their connection to waters, rivers, streams, canals and how they play a central role for humanity. Themes associated with the river through: memories, experiences, the subconscious, meditations, fantasies and actual life experiences of various kinds. The water element itself, from the riverbed to how connections themselves are important; the meandering leading to many different individual or parallel rivers.Originaly Jannike Brantås created a deep contact 2018 at the art fair Supermarket in Sweden with an Iranian art space in Isfahan. In the artist-run gallery Madeleine intended to work with Persian patterns as a stepping stone, Jannike inspiration was motives on carpets and rugs and Rikard planned to explore what one could do in the public space. Masoud had a frozen image formed in his reflections and Laetitia found her background along the rivers of France. Madeleine Aleman | www.aleman.se Jannike Brantås | www.jannikebrantas.se Rikard Fåhraeus | www.rikard.yolasite.com Laetitia Deschamps Fåhraeus | laetitiadeschamps.yolasite.com Masoud Shahsavari | www.thatday.gallery CONFLUX - a video collage, 8 min., by all the members of the group. The work with the video Conflux was an intention to communicate in the group about our theme: the river. Through short clips that we sent to each other, scheduled, we intended to let ourselves be influenced by each other. The final outcome of the video consists of traces; an accumulation of inspiration, association and resistance, through our individual artistic practices. Masoud Shahsavari, The traveler’s footsteps, 2022 Material: MDF + Photography The mother of all living sleeps now. Your hand, your mind, the drum beat needed to wake her up just for the promised dance. Move your feet until the rain falls in the Sahara and the fields of yellow tulips cover your vision, your soul. Ohhhh…dear mother, for me you will not wake up. I will meet you soon in infinity with hands full of sand and yellow tulips. Until then I will dance to wake up the soul of all living. I'm not in denial …I will not live in denial! Emotions flow through the imaginary Chikuma River (千 曲 川), changing form indefinitely. These feelings should be like falling leaves in the autumn, lying on cold ground. Now I stop breathing!
Laetitia Deschamps Fåhraeus Along hydrologic thoughts, Installation, Mix media, Photopolymer, frame, print on canvas, cushion, 2022. My proposal is to let the viewer walk along my hydrological thoughts. These thoughts come from a nostalgic image of my childhood, when French geography and learning the names of rivers was important, when reading the novel La rivière by Henri Bosco filled my imagination with all the words related to meanders of water, as well as its disappearing trades and activities. My river is punctuated by this search for authenticity and its richness, which is no longer possible to achieve. It is a search for the artificial recreation of these visions and sensations of the movements over the water with which this river has made its bed. Jannike Brantås, Installation, stone and dried branches, 2022. The Stone uplifted hanging by water force, always in motion. By the dried river, represented by the curved dried branches. The river without its flow, now upheaved leaving the river bed dry and the soul flow in the people in Isfahan (and other cities) the flow of life taken from them. This was part of the starting point of the river project, now Conflux exhibition. The installation may appear as a contrast, as the absence of fluidity. The water flow turned into its contrast. Rikard Fåhraeus is presenting what seems to be a found text and objects in relation to this. Rikard Fåhraeus is born 1968, lives and works in Stockholm. He took his Master of fine Arts in 1999 and has since then exhibited regularly in Sweden and abroad. Since 2007 he is part of the artist run organisations Slipvillan and Studio44 in Stockholm. He is an interdiciplinary artist but mainly expresses himself with sculptures. The text appears to be an exploration and tells of encounters with a group of people that are called C-flux. This group could be seen as a contemporary tribe that is existing in areas with canals, rivers or archipelagos. The objects are said to be made by this group. The main focus of these people seems to be to join objects, thoughts, people and ideas in a world that is dominated by our western deconstructive and individualistic culture. How and that the joining itself is done is what is the focus more than the result. Madeleine Aleman and Jannike Brantås, Mother Tongue I-III photopolymer print and dry pastel, 2021 The title, Mother Tongue, is a reference to forgotten understanding via old and hidden knowledge. The works have the same process, starting with Aleman´s photopolymer prints, which landscapes are originated from meditations. Aleman furthered the prints to Brantås who worked intuitively on them with dry pastel. Two intuitive techniques used to make the images correspond on the surface and the final landscapes may reach the viewers through several levels of comprehension. Madeleine Aleman, From the Moon to the Fixed Stars II Dry pastel on cardboard, 2022 This series is inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s concept of 7-years cycles in biographies. It’s one drawing for each period from I was born up to now, at the age of 63. Every 7-year period has its own certain stages of development and is also connected to different planets, metals, colors and internal organs. I’ve been practicing Active Imagination, a kind of inner journeying, before each drawing was made. The method was found by the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung.