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GUJOURNALEN 1 | 2012
no 1 | february 2012
Sailing alone
Annika von Hausswolff: an artist who chooses her own path Graduate programs
Wanted:
Meet GU’s professor of magic
Good marks but poor conditions
New pro vice-chancellor
Ingmar Söhrman has a few aces up his sleeve
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UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
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Vice Chancellor
A magazine for employees of the Universit y of Gothenburg
Work on renewal will continue during 2012 particularly eventful year. Internally it had a great deal to do with work on renewal. In the world, political decisions and financial crises played a great role for our activities. Greater competition has created pressure for changes at universities in recent years. This is the background to why much of what has happened at the University of Gothenburg during 2011 was connected to the future and that will be the basis for a new vision and business strategy. This year we enter a more mature phase of this development work that aims to strengthen us as a university. Last year we put a great deal of time and energy into identifying and discussing future questions for the University. This year we will tie up the bag and create unity over how best to strengthen our core activities, education and research, and what choices that requires. It will demand great humility and respect for each others’ academic areas and different ideas. The results of the extensive research evaluation RED10 came in March last year. There we got proof and a good picture of how research at the University of Gothenburg stands in an international perspective. The investigation of our educational program, BLUE11, will be completed at the beginning of 2012. Innovation and entrepreneurship have also been evaluated. In the framework of the ongoing visionary work, a large series of seminars and workshops have been held throughout the University’s activities, area by area.
February – March 2012 E d i to r - i n C h i e f a n d P u b l i s h e r
Allan Eriksson 031 - 786 10 21 allan.eriksson@gu.se E d i to r a n d V i ce P u b l i s h e r
Eva Lundgren 031 - 786 10 81 eva.lundgren@gu.se P h oto g r a p h y a n d Rep r o d u c t i o n
2 0 11 wa s a
we now have a solid basis for developing the University of Gothenburg’s new long term strategy, Vision and Choices 2013– 2020. As another part of the University’s work on change, a renewal project was also run during 2011 that dealt with the University’s organisation, Renewing the University of Gothenburg. Here I think that the actual work process, with many people who have been involved in holding discussions over faculty and department boundaries, has been and will continue to be important for how we see ourselves and our possibilities to develop into a unified university with quality in everything we do. The work on a change in the organisation will be completed by the end of this year. I n tota l ,
Johan Wingborg 031 - 786 29 29 johan.wingborg@gu.se G r a p h i c F o r m a n d L ayo u t
Anders Eurén 031 - 786 43 81 anders.euren@gu.se Contributing writer
Annika Hansson T r a s l at i o n
Janet Westerlund A s s i s ta n t G r a p h i c F o r m
Björn Eriksson address
GU Journalen, Göteborgs universitet Box 100, 405 30 Göteborg Photo: Hille vi nagel
e-post
gu-journalen@gu.se
A work environment investigation was recently finished that included all employees. The results of this will probably give some answers about what people all around the University think about all the ongoing renewal work. It can also guide us in terms of increasing the well-being and satisfaction of our employees in the future. was preparatory work during 2011. There were also some important and innovative reforms for the University of Gothenburg. For example, we took the historic decision to employ doctoral students from the first day of their graduate studies. This will give them a better work environment and greater security. We were also among the first in the country to introduce the right to vote for all categories of personnel in our different academic organs. This is in good agreement with our ambition to have operations with high integrity and an internally democratic organisation. A mix of concrete evaluation results and many employees’ thoughts and ideas is an important building block as we go into the final lap of our visionary work. My hope is that, at this time next year, the University of Gothenburg will have a new vision and longterm strategy that we are proud of. B u t n ot eve ry t h i n g
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Contents
GUJOURNAL 1 | 2012
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Vice-chancellor
2 Work on renewal to continue this year News
4 PhDs satisfied with their graduate education but there’s a lot left to do 6 University seminar: Can University be more independent? 7 Candidates for the position of pro vice-chancellor Leisure time
8 Ingmar Söhrman can transform himself
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Profile
10 After examining abandoned places, Annika von Hausswolff continues to instruct Master’s students
A varied teaching job For artist Annika von Hausswolff, the meeting with students is the most positive thing. A total luxury environment with small classes, 7-8 students, she says.
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Little particles change the world They are called secondary organic aerosols and influence climate in a complicated way, explains chemist Kent Salo.
8 El Mago Most PhDs are satisfied with education “But the fact that only 12 per cent think that career supervision works well is a problem, says Mahssa Karimi and Eva Jonson.
University seminar
Ingmar Söhrman, professor of Romance languages, can pull an egg from his magic bag.
“We have more freedom than ever, yet all universities move in the same direction,” says University Chancellor Lars Haikola.
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Editorial: What will GU be in ten years? R a r e ly h a s t h e discussion of the role of the university been as hot as it is now. Why is this? At the seminar To steer or be steered at Vasaparken on January 11, university chancellor Lars Haikola said that the new autonomy of universities is paradoxical: on the one hand universities are able to decide more and more themselves and on the other the financing system is forcing similarities that no one actually wants. In a time of creating profiles and marketing, everyone is moving
in the same direction. The question is whether GU can choose its own path and not just give priority to ranking lists and articles in English. Gunnar Falkemark pointed out that all the big research names in the humanities and social sciences (such as Michel Foucault and Zygmunt Bauman) have written tomes, often not in English. So what does it matter if GU climbs a few steps higher on a ranking list? You can read an abstract of the debate in this pdf magazine.
A new pro vice-chancellor will be elected before summer. But also new deans and heads of departments will be appointed. GU Journal will continue reporting on these and other things. But we also like to write more personally about our University colleagues. Read about artist Annika von Hausswolff and her exploration of abandoned places. She is a guest professor who considers it a luxury to teach. Or take the time to meet Professor Ingmar Söhrman who some-
times turns himself into the wizard El Mago. It is perhaps a sign of the times that the Swedish issue of GU Journal offers a great deal of debate – four pages – which of course we’re very happy about. But not only our Swedish readers can participate in the debate – we welcome everybody at the University to write to us.
The Editorial Office
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News
Graduate education up to date? They’re satisfied or very satisfied with both the graduate education and the work they have today but employment conditions and mobility aren’t as good. This is what was shown in an investigation about what PhDs think of their graduation education. But are graduate students really equipped for the future labour market?
P ro v i ce- c h a n ce llo r Lennart Weibull, who is chairman of the Committee on Third Cycle Education, is happy that it’s gone so well for the PhDs. “It’s wonderful to see that so many have jobs today and have gone on to universities and colleges, in spite of the fact that we have educated so many PhDs during this period. It’s also positive that so many are relatively satisfied with their education.” Lennart Weibull feels that society would gain by educating even more PhDs. “If we could demystify graduate education and show its usefulness it would be easier for PhDs in the social sciences and humanities to get jobs outside
the academic world. It would also lead to greater cooperation between universities and the surrounding society.” I n s pit e o f t h e positive results, Mahssa Karimi at the University of Gothenburg’s graduate student committee (GUDK) and Eva Jonson at the University of Gothenburg’s student unions (GUS) say that there’s much left to do. “It’s not good enough that only 58 per cent of graduate students experience that the physical workplace functions well,” says Mahssa Karimi. “We suspect that it varies largely between different faculties but we feel that all graduate students should have access to a good work environment, with computers, office materials and telephones, during their entire education.” Furthermore, 20 per cent are dissatisfied with supervision, which worries Eva Jonson. “Supervision is one of the most important parts of graduate education,” she says. “That also only 12 per cent think that career supervision works well shows how hard it can be for graduate students to take part in national and international conferences and participate in the knowledge exchange that takes place at these events.” There are however certain differences between faculties, not least in terms of how satisfied the PhDs are with the graduate education. At the top are the education and social science faculties and at the bottom the humanities faculty, where 73 per cent were satisfied with their time on their graduate education. Henrik Björck, vice-dean for graduate education at the humanities faculty has no good answer about the cause. “There aren’t any big differences but I suspect that there’s a larger proportion that have been accepted according to the old system. We’ve made sizeable changes in the graduation education since
analysis. Lennart Weibull says that it’s a question that the University is working with today, not least by offering skill courses in project management. But sometimes it’s a delicate balance between the need of deeper knowledge in an area and more general skills. “The graduate education shall be the university’s leading edge education and it’s therefore extremely important that we are strong in the academic areas. We have to have full respect for there being differences between faculties.”
S k i ll s t h at a r e strengthened in the education are for example the ability to critically examine and judge new knowledge, follow the development of knowledge in the area in question and carry out qualified research tasks. However, there are critical voices over poor employment conditions and low pay. This doesn’t come as a surprise to Lennart Weibull. “No, it reflects the situation as it has been. This has already been taken care of by the introduction of a graduate student salary, even though it won’t be in place completely until 2015.” Another result is that many PhDs lack general knowledge about for example budget, project management and business
»General knowledge should be much stronger and make up a part of graduate studies« Mahssa Karimi PHoto: Johan Wingborg
A b o u t 1 1 0 0 PhDs answered questions about their graduation education and the time afterward. It’s the first extensive investigation of its kind at the University of Gothenburg. “The aim is to follow up how the graduation education works, to find out whether the education corresponds to expectations and gather knowledge about where they’ve gone after they’ve completed their theses,” says investigator Anna Clara Stenvall at the department of analysis and evaluation. The results are positive on the whole. Over 80 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied with the graduate education and think that it has contributed to their personal and professional development. The PhDs also experience that they have great use of their education in their present work. The investigation confirms that graduate education leads to good work opportunities: 94 per cent work today, full-time or part-time. Most of them work within the university and college sector. “Those who have been out on the labour market for a longer time have also established themselves to a greater extent,” says Anna Clara Stenvall.
then and according to our latest graduate student questionnaire, today’s graduate students are more satisfied than earlier.”
T h e ba s i c pro b le m is, according to the graduate student committee, that graduate students haven’t been sufficiently prepared for a career outside the school. “General knowledge should be much stronger and make up a basic part of graduate studies. That’s needed when the researchers finally come out to the labour market, both inside and outside the academic world. To drive research forward, you should be able to cooperate with other research groups and learn how to get research funds and stipends. Research isn’t free. If you try to develop in the academic world, which is a tough world, you have to be educated in how to run projects,” says Mahssa Karimi. The investigation also confirms something that many people have had a feeling about. A whopping 72 per cent of applicants to graduate studies have done their undergraduate work at the University of Gothenburg. Of those who work in the school sector, 64 per cent are at the University.
a problem? “As far as I know, it’s the same at the universities in Lund and Uppsala. It would of course be desirable if there were greater mobility, but it doesn’t always have to be only negative to remain at the school you’ve graduated from. There are also often social factors that work against mobility. If we should give priority to an internal applicant over a more qualified external candidate it would be a serious problem. It has to be quality that counts,” says Lennart Weibull. I s t h e low m o b i lit y
To develop in the tough academic world you have to get an education in running projects, for example, according to Mahssa Karimi and Eva Jonson.
Allan Eriksson
News
GUJOURNAL 1 | 2012
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Graduate students now have a chance to make an impact How are your graduate studies? High demands and a great deal of instruction or good supervisory support and extremely stimulating? Now you have the chance to make an impact. It’s time for the big investigation of the University of Gothenburg’s graduate students.
A l a rg e pa r t of the battery of questions is the same as earlier, but all the questions on the work environment have been removed since they were included in the work environment barometer from last fall. The questionnaire is also considerably less extensive than the last one. It has a total of 40 questions and takes about 20 minutes to fill in. “We’ve made a large review of all the questions and have had help in formulating the questions by the graduate student committee and active doctoral students at the different faculties,” says investigator Anna Clara Stenvall, who also works with the questionnaire. It’s divided into different question areas that deal for instance with the path
to the graduate education, what the students generally think of it and what their expectations are for the time after they complete their studies. Some examples of specific questions are: Do you have an individual study plan? How satisfied have you been up to now with your graduate studies? How was your work situation in the fall of 2011? To what extent up to now have you presented your research at seminars, participated in scientific conferences, instructed or supervised students? Would you recommend others to follow the graduate program that you have? T h e r e i s a l s o room to give suggestions for improvements. “All together, the investigation will give a good picture of the graduate education, what works well and what weaknesses there are,” says Josefine Sternvik. “The advantage of this investigation is that it is addressed to everyone. The results will be able to some extent to be compared backwards in time, with the investigation from 2007, as well as with Lund University and Uppsala University.” No one has to worry that the responses can be traced to particular individuals. “All responses are anonymous and we will only report the material in such a way that it won’t be possible to draw any conclusions about who has answered what. People can truly say what they think, for example about the relation with the supervisor,”
PHoto: Johan Wingborg
J o s e fi n e St e r n v i k at the department of analysis and evaluation is leading the questionnaire study that’s now being sent home to all doctoral candidates that are registered in graduate studies – all together 2 500 students. “The purpose is simply to improve the graduate education. Thanks to the investigation we’ll get a good basis for decisions on measures that apply for the common goals of graduate education. Furthermore, attention is being paid to differences between the faculties that we hope will lead to continued work on change at the respective faculties.” The last investigation was made in 2007. “Big changes have been made since then. We want to find out what has happened during this time,” says Josefine Sternvik.
Anna Clara Stenvall encourages graduate students to answer the questionnaire. It takes only 20 minutes to fill it in. o G ö te b
rGsd
o k to r
m be dig so itet kät till univers En en eborgs vid Göt
explains Anna Clara Stenvall. Now they hope that as many people as possible will take the chance to fill in the questionnaire. “Doctoral students have a lot to do and are therefore a difficult group to reach. Answer the questionnaire right away, don’t wait,” says Anna Clara Stenvall encouragingly. The hope is to present the results of the investigation at the end of the spring. Read more at: www.analys.gf.gu.se Allan Eriksson
Gothenbu rg PhDs Göteborgsdoktorander 2011/12 will be sent home to all graduate students accepted in a graduate program from 1998-2010 in the middle of February. It’s possible to fill in a printed questionnaire or to respond on Internet. There is also a web version in English for graduate students who do not speak Swedish.
a n de
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forska driver
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News
A system that forces undesirable similarities A paradox. That was Lars Haikola’s description of the universities’ new autonomy at a seminar about visions on January 11. “We have great freedom to steer. But the financing system forces more similarities than anyone really wants.”
the bottom line is that it’s the university’s goal to create a better life for all people.” Gunnar Falkemark, professor of political science, agreed. “All researchers of significance in the humanities or social sciences have written heavy books, often in another language than English, that also interest many other people than just experts. We have big names like Michel Foucault and Zygmunt Bauman or why not Karin Johannesson and Carina Burman. What if there was a directive that they could only write articles in English, how positive would that be? And how important is it that the University of Gothenburg climbs a few steps on a ranking list? Would that give the Vice-chancellor and leading researchers a longer life? I think that the University should take a more independent position and do the opposite. Why not establish a professorship in public understanding of science? That would increase general interest in science.”
A b o u t h a lf a million people are part of Swedish academia, which represents two per cent of the country’s GNP, said Lars Haikola at the seminar To steer or be steered, which was a part of the visionary work that the University of Gothenburg is currently carrying out. “ T h e c u r r e n t changes in schools of higher education are actually a delayed reaction to the 1970s mass university. We get more and more students who have a more and more heterogeneous background, demands for efficiency are increasing and we also have to compete on the commercial market. At the same time, we still have the Humboldt ideal with a close connection between research and education, in spite of the fact that it isn’t really possible to unite this with all the other requirements.” “Even if it isn’t possible for everyone to do research, it’s important that all teachers have a continuous competence development,” said Pam Fredman. “It’s also very meaningful for the university to be a good employer – we aren’t now.” Anders Söderholm, Vicechancellor of Mid Sweden University, pointed out that the university world has positive and negative sides. “We have a great deal of tolerance for serious work environment problems. But shouldn’t we actually, with the extent of freedom that we have, be better
Lars Haikola, University Chancellor of Sweden, describes the autonomy as a paradox.
than the rest of society? We’re good in terms of analysing other areas of society but bad at examining ourselves.” More universities are trying to manage today’s new challenges by making re-organisations. “But organisational changes don’t offer solutions. They just exchange problems. And new organisations are always temporary, affected by their times,” said Anders Söderholm.
»It’s our job to teach for the future for a labour market that doesn’t yet exist. It isn’t easy, but it is the university’s goal to create a better life for people.«
I n g r i d E l a m , Pro vice-chancellor at Malmö University, said that schools often plan education programs according to what teachers need to give instruction in rather
than try to find out what the students need. “It’s our job to teach for the future, for a labour market that doesn’t yet exist. It isn’t easy but
Ingrid Elam
P ro V i ce- c h a n ce llo r
Margareta Wallin Peterson wondered how the University of Gothenburg will be in ten years. “We can at least hope that it will still be the University of Gothenburg and not Lund,” said Krista Varantola, member of the University’s advisory board. “It’s important to do things that you believe in and not, because of outside pressure, put energy into things you don’t actually want.”
Eva Lundgren The seminar ”To steer or be steered” was held at Vasaparken on January 11 and is a part of the University’s visionary work. For more information see: vision2020.gu.se.
News
GUJOURNAL 1 | 2012
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Job applicants Three men and two women are applying for the position of pro vice-chancellor at the University of Gothenburg according to a compilation of the notifications of interest that have come in. Le n n a r t W e i b u ll will leave his position as pro vice-chancellor and deputy vice-chancellor on June 30 this year, when the term of the position ends. The Board has appointed a recruitment group that will sift through the applicants to find one or more candidates that the assembly (the same as for the selection of vice-chancellor) will consider. According to the plan, the Board will make its decision on April 26. The position of pro vicechancellor follows the mandate period of the vice-chancellor.
Here are the candidates:
Helena Lindholm Schulz
Alf Björnberg
Gunhild Vidén
Börje Haraldsson
Nils Ekelund
professor of peace and development research, currently the dean of the Social Sciences Faculty. In her research she has dealt with questions about nationalism and identity, primarily Palestinian nationalism.
has been a professor of music science since 2000. He took his PhD in 1987 with a thesis on how music has changed the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest since the end of the 1950s. He has been involved in about 30 radio programs and is the subject matter expert for the Swedish national encyclopedia in popular music.
professor of Latin, is currently head of the department of language and literature, member of the humanistic board and is responsible in the faculty for internationalisation. She has previously been a professor at Norway’s technical-natural science university in Trondheim and is chairman for the Swedish Classics Association.
professor of experimental nephrology, is currently guest professor at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York. As vice-dean responsible for graduate education issues at the Sahlgrenska Academy, he worked a great deal on clarifying regulations and increasing the legal rights of doctoral students.
is the only external applicant. He is a professor of plant physiology and head of the Department of Natural Science, Technology and Mathematics at the Mid Sweden University. He is very interested in environmental issues. In his research, he has looked closely at how ultraviolet radiation affects algae in our lakes and seas. He also keeps a research blog.
New heads will be selected this spring What changes await among the heads at the University of Gothenburg? We’ll know in April when the choice of deans and heads of departments at all the faculties is made known. T h e U n i ve r s it y of Gothenburg’s Board will form its decision on new labour and delegation arrangements to be valid as of July 1, 2012. Later in the spring, after an election, all the deans and heads of departments will be designated. Why? “The old higher education ordinance became invalid as of January 1, 2011. Schools have instead gotten a great deal more freedom to decide themselves how they want to be organised,” explains project manager Christina Rogestam. At the University of Gothenburg, we’ve
decided to move several issues to the department level. That means that the department head is given a greater mandate to make decisions and work strategically while the dean and faculty board are given clearer responsibility for questions about the quality and contents of research and education. As the heads’ tasks have changed, it’s reasonable to carry out elections so that the present deans and heads of departments can decide whether they want to work for a further 6 years in the new organisation. Preparatory groups in faculties and departments will develop suggestions for candidates in counsel with the Vice-chancellor and deans. When elections have been held, the Vice-chancellor will appoint deans and the deans will appoint the heads of departments.
»The purpose here is to make the competence and experience of employees visible« Christina Rogestam A c h a r ti n g o f competence will also be done during the spring of the University’s administrative and technical employees. “The purpose here is to make the competence and experience of employees visible. At the same time, individuals are given the possibility to notify their interest in another position or in competence development. The results of the charting will be managed by each head. A web-based questionnaire will be sent out
and, here as well, a work group has been appointed to ensure the best performance.” The charting is a step in a review of the whole administrative organisation on the central, faculty and department levels. “The goal is to create a university with simple and uniform administrative rules where employees and all students are treated in the same way,” explains Christina Rogestam. Acco r d i n g to the plan, all the more important decisions about the administrative organisation will be taken before summer with a successive implementation during the fall.
Eva Lundgren
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Leisure
text Eva Lundgren Photography Johan Wingborg
He can transform flaming fire into a plate of candy, make playing cards lose their colour and break out of heavily locked handcuffs. But el Mago has yet another trick. He can also transform himself. Then he becomes Ingmar Söhrman, professor of romance languages. First a little story:
“This bag is actually an Indian refrigerator. I had to travel to Delhi and then 356 kilometers north and get myself up a high mountain to get it. Because far up there lives an old woman who is the only person in the world who sells these refrigerators.” At the same time that Ingmar Söhrman talks, he spirits away an egg from a black bag. Not here, not there, but isn’t he holding his arm toward his body in a suspicious way? Just as I think that I’ve detected the trick he happens to raise his arm and, no, there isn’t anything. The egg comes out again instead – in the bag. “This is a trick that I usually use at children’s parties,” he continues and brings out an ordinary frying pan from his caches. Then again, ordinary? “No, this is a magic pan, so there’s no point trying the trick at home. First I light a fire in the pan, put on the lid and…the pan is full of candy.” At t h e m o m e n t Ingmar Söhrman is wearing tails. But it’s also possible to do conjuring tricks in an ordinary sports jacket. “Or in a short-armed t shirt. But the public usually thinks that’s a little boring. It’s more fun if I can pretend to hide things up my sleeves. And a tailcoat is of course a little extra formal.” How do you get to be a good magician? Dexterity and good magic equipment are important, of course.
GUJOURNAL 1 | 2012
“But more important than anything else is the ability to create contact with the public,” says Ingmar Söhrman. “It should feel like you have an invisible thread to all the people who are watching, not only to the ones who are sitting at the front. You pull this thread carefully in order to maintain interest without losing anyone.” M ag i c a l s o h a s to do with coordinating words and movements and perhaps music into one unit. “It has to do with learning to pause and make things dramatic, dare to get close to the public and clown a little bit. The ability to capture a public is useful in many other contexts, not least as a teacher. ‘What in the world is somebody like you doing at the university?’ called out a student
Ing mar Söhrman
Name: El Mago, also known as Ingmar Söhrman Occupational: Professor of romance languages, particularly Spanish. Interests: In addition to magic: music and art but also of course languages. Has translated short stories from Romansh. Books: Vägen från latinet: de romanska språkens historia (2006; The way from Latin: the history of the Romance languages); Minoriteter i Europa (2004; Minorities in Europe); Sverige och Rumänien (2000; Sweden and Romania); Balkan: folk and länder i krig och fred (1996; The Balkans: people and countries in war and peace).
once when I did a magic trick during a lecture, and that’s probably the best critique I’ve ever received.” M ag i c i s a n a r t with a long history. Magic equipment has been found in ruins from antique Egypt and Greece. And magicians have always been a part of different jesting and circus contexts, explains Ingmar Söhrman. “But magic isn’t one of the fine arts. For that reason there’s little knowledge about magicians of earlier times. But you can actually study magic at the university in Valladolid and there’s a museum of magic in Nyköping for interested magicians.” Ingmar Söhrman’s interest in magic began with a box of magic equipment from Buttericks that he got from his father when he was a child home in Kungshamn. A while later he began to take piano lessons. “Which I didn’t think was so much fun. Happily, my piano teacher was a magician too, so we started to practice different tricks instead of scales.” But it was in Uppsala he really began to develop his art. And the worst test he’s ever had didn’t have anything to do with futurum exactum or vocative conjugation in an extinct language. It had to do with magic. “I was going to do the test to become a member of the group Uppsala magic brothers and the examiner was no less than the British magician Topper Martyn. I was nervous but it went well.”
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He’s gotten many magic contacts through the years, such as in Spain, France and England. He’s also a member of the Swedish Magic Circle and via them participates in the congresses that the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques arranges every third year. “It’s time again in July, this time in Blackpool. Then you can buy tricks from other magicians and perform.” Magic is entertainment, says Ingmar Söhrman, and must not be used for any shady purposes. “The father of modern magic, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, was sent to Algeria in 1856 to frighten rebels by convincing
Far away in India there lives an old woman who sells magic refrigerators, el Mago tells us.
them that the French had magical powers. I don’t think he was particularly amused by it. During a performance, the magician has the right to claim that he really can do the impossible. But offstage, you have to confess that it’s all just artistry and pretend.” Can you always detect other magicians or does it happen that you get fooled?
“I mostly have a good idea about how a trick is done. But I admire the people who have skill. Once I had the opportunity to meet the legendary magician James Randi, who took a firm grip of my hand. When I looked at my watch, the hands had moved. How he did that, I actually have no idea.”
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Profile
text Annika Hansson | foto Johan Wingborg
With childish seriousness She’s an artist and is known for her photographs. Her book, in which she documented capitalism’s forgotten places in Europe and the USA, came out last fall. Annika von Hausswolff is now back at the School of Photography teaching Master’s students. “ H av i n g a co m p le t e ly unique way of following students’ development, that’s the richness of working here,” says Annika von Hausswolff. She’s been adjunct professor at the School of Photography for a couple of years. But she took a leave of absence during the past school year to work with her book Avgrunden (The Abyss). There she and author Jan Jörnmark depict how the global labour market moved to East Asia. They’ve both travelled in Europe and the USA and Annika von Hausswolff has documented what they’ve seen in her photographs. It’s places that capitalism has forgotten, where only ruins are witness to what there once was. “It was Jan Jörnmark’s idea to go out and document those places. He wanted to write about globalisation and its processes and effects. I said yes to that, I thought it sounded very exciting,” says Annika von Hausswolff.
on a Friday morning in the old brick house on Storgatan in Gothenburg with the inscription “Chalmersska Institutet”, where the School of Photography has its offices. She was on TV4 in Stockholm that same day and talked about the book. It doesn’t show that it’s been a long day. She speaks thoughtfully and is well-formulated. “It was a kick for me to work in this way. I usually make my own pictures and then the idea comes first. It was the opposite here. I thought that I’d probably work with the pictures before the book and then it would have been ‘that’s it’. But when I came to these places I recognised many moods and objects from my own imagery. I’ve often worked toward some form of desolation in my pictures.” I m ee t h e r
Annika von Hausswolff also had an exhibition in Stockholm at the AndrehnSchiptjenko gallery at the beginning of the fall with material from the trip. She chose pictures from a number of places that had impressed her, in Sweden, Croatia and the USA. “They’re pretty archetypical places: a residential area, a school, a church, a court and a nightclub. Like a little society of empty places.” What moved her most was an abandoned courthouse in the USA. “I’ve always been interested in criminology, in crime and punishment, laws and law-breaking. Coming into this environment was tough. They’d left so much, the judge’s chair, jury box and the benches for the public. Police reports lay there in the archives. I couldn’t get myself to read them. It felt so symbolic, a court, so many aspects of a person’s life cross there.” O n e o f t h e cities they visited was Detroit. The old automobile industry disappeared long ago. The city has lost more than half its inhabitants. Very many houses and facilities are empty. The reason why they haven’t been torn down is that it’s too expensive. “We also saw a handful of different school environments. It was very touching and emotional. There were chairs, school benches and lockers, a little chalk on the blackboards. Everything was vandalised to some extent but a lot of things were still there. There’s a heavy symbolism in an abandoned schoolhouse. It’s like society’s most fundamental things have fallen in some way.” Her own path to working as an artist and teacher at the School of Photography started with punk music. Annika von Hausswolff was born and
bred in Gothenburg. She laughs when I ask her if she comes from an artistic family. “No, oh no, no, no. My parents were trolley drivers, so I absolutely come from the working class. I found art myself via music. I did work practice at a record company that was run by artists. Thanks to them I started to go to exhibitions and I didn’t understand anything, but I thought it was exciting.” S h e d e s c r i b e s herself as having been a very curious child. She doesn’t think that it’s only by chance that she’s where she is today. But it may just as well have been in music. “But I sail alone very much of the time. So being an artist probably suits me. I don’t think that I would have worked together with a group of musicians.” Annika von Hausswolff dropped out of secondary school and instead attended a vocational school, Sven Winqvist’s school of photography in Gothenburg. After that she worked for a year at Göteborgs-Posten as a copyist. “That was a fun year, just in the transformation between the analogous and digital way to send pictures to the editorial office. I worked the night that the wall fell in 1989.” Then she applied to the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and was accepted. “I thought I had more freedom in working as an artist. The photographers’ world was pretty narrow. You had to take pictures of this and that and present the pictures in a particular way. There wasn’t so much room to choose to do your own thing.” “It was easier to call yourself an artist and do other projects. But I never left photography. I’ve experimented sometimes with other materials in combination with photography, like drapes and blinds, very flat things.”
GUJOURNAL 1 | 2012
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Profile
Annik a von Hau sswolff
After the three years at the University College of Arts and Design she stayed in Stockholm for 11 years. Then she moved with her husband to Berlin, where they stayed for four years. They returned to Gothenburg when they had their second child. Annika von Hausswolff didn’t like Berlin very much. “I thought it was hard to live there. I never felt at home. It’s an emotional place considering what has happened in terms of war, politics and the wall. You have to have been born in Berlin to be able to feel at home there. It wasn’t my history in spite of its being Europe’s history.” S h e t h i n k s t h at one thing that might have been important was that her children were so young then. “I thought it was complicated to live in a place with small children when I couldn’t speak the language well enough. It was a very useful experience, of course. I can understand mothers who come to Sweden without being able to speak the language. An enormous frustration! I tried to learn German, of course, but it wasn’t particularly easy.” She likes travelling and seeing new places. But she likes just as much coming home and “being a little bored.” “Maybe I need everyday boredom to be able to function. It was never boring in Berlin in spite of its being an overestimated city.” In Annika von Hausswolff’s presentation on the School of Photography’s web page you can read: “in her carefully staged photographs, the human body is often present or has left its traces…” “It’s hard to say where the ideas come from. I often work toward an exhibition or a project. I rarely work unconditionally. I usually give myself pretty simple rules for a project. It can be ‘now I’m going to only work with daylight’ or ‘only use a flash’. They’re simple approaches that narrow down the work a little. Being a free artist can be very free, a little too free sometimes,” she says and smiles. B u t a ll i d e a s can’t be acted upon; some have to be weeded out. “The ideas that float, those are the ones I work with in the end. The ones that don’t return get forgotten. My subconscious has many fingers in the pie. I listen to my intuition. It’s worked till now and probably will a while longer.” She doesn’t use any outspoken themes. “But I’m interested in certain subjects. Read a lot of psychoanalytical literature. I’m fascinated most by theory.” Nature was often a part of her early pictures, in spite of her not being so interested in nature. “Instead I’m fascinated by people’s existence in the world we’ve created for ourselves. And that I often depict women probably
Aktuell: Adjunct professor at the School of Photography. Published a book last fall Avgrunden (The Abyss) (together with Jan Jörnmark) and is a member of the jury for Liljevalch’s vårsalong 2012. Occupation: Artist. Age: 44 years. Family: “Two children and their little brother, who is my godson.” Background: Sven Winqvist’s school of photography in Gothenburg. University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Extensive exhibitions both in Sweden and internationally among others at institutions such as Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Magasin 3 in Stockholm and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. Has represented Sweden at biennials in Venice and Sao Paulo. Interests: Poetry, criminology, psychological literature, airline crashes. Strength: Humour. Weakness: “I brood too much.” Afr aid of: Being in a plane crash. Favourite food: “Pho. A Vietnamese soup, their national dish, pronounced föö.”
It’s hard to say where the ideas come from. I often work toward an exhibition or a project.
Most recently read book: Salome by Mara Lee. Most recently seen film: “Pirates of the Caribbean 4 with my son.” Favourite music: Neil Young. Favourite artists: Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman.
has to do with my being a woman. But I think more often about mankind, about the human position.” Annika von Hausswolff says that she’s “serious as the grave” in her pictures. She thinks it’s a seriousness in a bit of a childish way. “But I need a little humour, so I try to poke some in sometimes.” After last year’s leave of absence much of her time now goes to teaching. She shares the position of adjunct professor with her colleague, Lotta Antonsson. She sees both positive and negative things with the teaching job. “The positive thing is the work with the students. The conditions are a treat, with small classes of 7-8 students, which makes teaching intimate and personal. We come pretty close to one another.” S h e fu n c ti o n s m o st ly as a supervisor and seldom gives lectures. Beyond that she holds so called critique classes, where the whole group meets and goes through everyone’s work. “I supervise and pick other supervisors
from the field. We have what we call ‘experts’. Those are artists, gallerists or authors that write about photography and art.” T h e n eg ati ve pa r t of the teaching job is the difficulty of uniting that with your own art, she thinks. “It’s complicated to shift focus from teaching to your own creating in a short time. I think it would be good to work every other year instead, and then 100 per cent. That would be pretty perfect.” Where does she get her inspiration from? “From pictures I see, of other art, of history. I’m a picture person, think a lot in pictures.” Today we meet a stream of pictures all the time via newspapers, TV, advertisements or the internet. “Yes and it’s unbelievable that, despite that, we can still see pictures that move us. But the fine thing about art photography is that it doesn’t try to sell anything, neither a message nor products. It’s a kind of freedom.”
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Dissertation
PHoto: Johan Wingborg
Small particles that change the world
that he’ll have to work on a boat again. “I have a little twisted background. I started in the natural science program in high school but stopped after a month and went in the technical operations and maintenance program instead and then worked at sea. Then I went to school to be a youth worker and worked in childcare for ten years. After that I went to adult school and wanted to study further, either biology or chemistry. I got my Master’s degree in organic chemistry but then wound up in atmospheric science. Now I’ve just gotten a job in a two-year project at Chalmers that deals with measuring sulphur in particles from shipping.” C h e m i st ry i s a s u b jec t that has difficulty attracting students, perhaps because it has a bad reputation as a cause of environmental degradation and other misfortunes. “I usually take Nobel prize winner Fritz Haber as an example. He developed the production of mustard gas. But he also revolutionised farming by making industrial production of fertilizer possible. Knowledge is necessary for being able to make good decisions. But it can of course be used for both good and bad purposes.”
First he was at sea for two years. Then he became a youth worker. Now Kent Salo is a doctor of chemistry. “I’ve always loved the natural sciences. So now I do research on very small particles that are hugely important for the climate and greenhouse effect.” h e s m a ll u n it s that Kent Salo measures are called secondary organic aerosols. “They’re particles that build in the atmosphere from gases from human activities, animals and plants. At the present there’s no basic knowledge of how the particles behave, age and change, but we know that they’re important for the climate.” Kent Salo has for example developed an instrument that he’s travelled around Europe with to measure how much particles are evaporated when they’re heated. He’s tested the instrument at research centers in Karlsruhe, Jülich and Valencia. “We already know that the greenhouse gases that humans release create a warmer climate. But higher temperatures also pro-
mote greater growth, which leads to more particles in the air. That in turn increases the amount of cloud drops, which leads to more clouds that cool the climate.”
Do you think that people know too little about chemistry?
Kent Salo Currently: Has recently defended his thesis Physical properties and processes of secondary organic aerosols and its constituents. Family: Ragnhild, KarlOskar and cat Pyssen
Plus minus nothing, then?
Lives: On Brännö
“A lot of people hope so. But the climate is more sensitive to emissions than we believed earlier since plants dampen the effects all the time. Right now the conifer forests in the northern hemisphere are reducing warming, but think if the warmer climate for example leads to new virus diseases in the forest. The trees may die then and then there’s nothing that stops the greenhouse effect anymore.” Thus far, Kent Salo has mostly measured particles in the laboratory. But soon he’ll be making tests outdoors as well, which means
Interests: Fishing, music, clocks, chemistry and a thousand other things
“No, not at all, different people just have different competences. But people often worry about the wrong things. An E number on a can of food may only mean that grape seed flour or vitamin C has been added. It’s important that researchers bring up problems but without being alarmists. For example, we have to decrease our consumption of energy, but getting politicians to suggest twice as high a price for electricity, it just doesn’t work. However, people with different competences have to begin to talk with each other. Fishermen and researchers have to be able to go out in the same boat and let their different kinds of knowledge cross-fertilize, and we have to work together with, not against, the industries that have the highest emissions. And researchers have to get people to feel like they can do some good in many ways, without its having to be complicated. An ordinary ‘Hi’ on the bus can also change the world.” Eva Lundgren Foto: Johan Wingborg
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News
University of Gothenburg gets an Indian guest professor The University of Gothenburg is the third school in Scandinavia to get a guest professor in Indian Cultural Studies, financed by the Indian government. “The professorship will deepen the already lively cooperation between researchers in Sweden and India,” explained Ambassador Ashok Sajjanhar, who together with Vicechancellor Pam Fredman signed the agreement on Tuesday, December 20. Åke Sander, professor of religious behavioural science, with his project Go: India, has been the driving force for the professorship that will function as a relay baton and goes first to the Humanities Faculty. It will then go over to the School of Economics, the Social Sciences Faculty and finally the Faculty of Education.
QUOTE
Indians who come to Sweden are impressed by the effectiveness, the technical level and the well developed environmental thinking, according to Ashok Sajjanhar. “We can in turn offer an ambitious people who work hard for a better future. India is the world’s largest democracy with the world’s second most rapidly growing economy.” India is also a country that makes efforts to take responsibility for the environment. “That growth necessarily is a hazard to the environment isn’t true. Quite the opposite, there’s no worse environmental destruction than letting people remain in poverty,” says Ashok Sajjanhar.
»Just because a person has the possibility to keep things secret doesn’t mean that he has to have secrets. There’s all reason to show greater openness; it’s business with 5 000 apartments closely connected to the University.« Political scientist Jan Turvall in Göteborgs-Posten January 27 about the secrecy at SGS.
44 millions plus According to the latest follow-up, the University of Gothenburg has an excess of 44 million crowns for 2011, which is close to the fall’s prognosis of 40 million. “It’s no surprise; it follows pretty well what we thought,” says chief financial officer Lars Nilsson. Several faculties went better than planned, but the Natural Science Faculty reported a minus of 15 million and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts had a minus of 43 million. “Both the artists and the natural scientists are in a risk zone and will have to do something if the situation doesn’t improve this year,” confirms Lars Nilsson. Last year, revenues increased by 3 per cent and costs by 11 per cent. The greater costs have mainly to do with strategic initiatives (a greater number of employees and efforts in infrastructure) and with the new salary agreement. The University of Gothenburg currently has an accumulated capital of over 800 million crowns.
The International Café takes place for international researchers, international staff, PhD students, their families and hosts. Location: Ågrenska villan, Högåsplatsen 2, Gothenburg Guest Services, www.gu.se/guestservices
Pam Fredman nominated for this year’s head, 2012. The prize will be given at the Kompetensgala at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm on March 14, 2012. The prize will be conferred by Chef magazine and the purpose is “to highlight and reward good examples among Sweden’s heads and spread their message about good leadership”. Others who have been nominated in the category of this year’s head are Lars Kry, president and CEO of Proffice, and Tommy Witedal, president of Toyota Center Göteborg/Toyota Center Malmö.
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