Public Retreat On Fire
Project rooms, Färgfabriken
Public Retreat: Nicole Cecilie Bitsch Pedersen (DK), Jo Mikkel Sjaastad Huse (NO), Johanna Fager (SE)
On July 31, 2021, the shut down carbonic acid factory in Lövholmen, Stockholm, began to burn. As with the stock exchange in Copenhagen and Notre Dame, questions arise: What happens now? And who gets to decide? Using alternative narratives and imaginary planning proposals, both realistic and absurd, we strive to negotiate about public space. To identify arguments within the larger topic of city development.
In a site-specific sound installation centered around the exhibition space’s view of the burnt carbonic acid factory, we aim to explore fire as a possible catalyst for change. What political, aesthetic, philosophical, metaphorical, architectural, historical and natural changes does it pave way for? Based on the project Nya Lövholmen – an artistic study of the redevelopment of the former industrial area in Stockholm, as well as an artistic citizen proposal, Public Retrreat has been invited to partake in the new Architecture Triennale at Färgfabriken – located in the middle of this developing area.
A spatial installation will invite the audience to reconsider the plot outside the windows – enveloped in stories, facts, field recordings and conceptions. During the exhibition, performative gestures and live radio broadcasts will activate the installation, the construction site and the surrounding area. By testing new ways of making the bureaucratic planning processes tangible, we hope to stimulate discussions and thoughts about people’s space and place – their home and city. Maybe the city can be different – better?
Live radio from Färgfabriken
During the fall of 2024, PUBILIC RETREAT is doing a radio residency at the Norwegian radio channel radiOrakel in Oslo. In 12 episodes, PUBLIC RETREAT Radio, explores the intricate relationship between city, sound and public spaces.Through site-, and context specific radio and sound works, field recordings, poetry, micro-narratives, speculative future prognoses, bird monologues + more, PUBLIC RETREAT reflects on these urgent questions.
Wednesday, October 23 between 17.00-18.00, one episode will be broadcasted live from Färgfabriken. You are welcome to listen, no pre-registration required, included in the entrance fee.
Listening event at Platform Stockholm
Listening event and collective talk with Public retreat at Färgfabriken’s neighbors Platform Stockholm. .
Friday 25 October 18.00-20.00. Only 12 places available, RSVP to contact@public-retreat.com.
Join Public Retreat and Platform Deep Dive for an evening of listening and conversation by the fire. What stories does Lövholmen have to tell? How does its past inform its present?
About Public Retreat
Public Retreat is an interdisciplinary, practice-based art and architecture project centered around the exploration of our common auditory urban environment and the human, non-human and more than human, experiences of and relations to it. Site and context specific sound-, radio-, visual-, and text-based works will be produced, shown, and broadcasted in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, with themes relevant to urban settings and societies in the world at large.
The project is led by composer and sound artist Nicole Cecilie Bitsch Pedersen (DK), visual artist and writer Jo Mikkel Sjaastad Huse (NO) and architect and artist Johanna Fager (SE), with an international network of collaborators and conversation partners engaged. Through artistic research, sound works, radio broadcasts, workshops and exhibitions, their aim is to engage fellow citizens to contemplate on the role of sounds in our lives, from their purely physical properties to their emotional, psychological, and physiological impact.
The group began collaborating in 2023, around the art and architect project Nya Lövholmen. It included semi-utopian architectural plans for an entire new neighborhood officially submitted as a citizen proposal; an absurd elevator pitch for an inverted skyscraper – a subterranean earth scraper – that could house all of mankind; handsewn site specific and locally distributed magazines; and a radio show about city planning, voiced in part by an enthusiastic bird. Nya Lövholmen was nominated for the Architects Sweden’s 2023 Critics Award.
From 1 August 2024 — 30 December 2024, Public Retreat will engage in an artistic study on the redevelopment of Lövholmen at Platform Stockholm, our neighbouring artist studio association and exhibition space. This is part of the new initiative Platform Deep Dive which positions Platform Stockholm as a central hub for artistic reflection on the ongoing transformation of Lövholmen from an industrial area to a residential hub. Each year, the program invites an artist to create site-specific work that captures the effects of these changes on local artists, the community, businesses, and residents. Public Retreat is the first artist entry invited to this program.
Public Retreat started working together and developing projects in the Lövholmen area when they participated in the OPI Lab course at the Royal Art Academy in Stockholm 2022/2023.
About the participants
Nicole Cecilie Bitsch Pedersen (b. 1990, DK), composer, visual-, and sound artist exploring the interweaved relationship between nature, sound, and technology. Pedersen holds a Master’s degree in composition from the Danish Institute of Electronic Music (DIEM) and a postmaster in public art from OPI Lab at Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. She has recently exhibited at Skovhuset (DK), SPARK (SE), Nordic Music Days (FO), and received grants from the Danish Arts Foundation and Danish Composers’ Society.
Jo Mikkel Sjaastad Huse (b. 1991, NO), visual artist and writer working primarily within the fields of text, installation, performance and sound. Huse has education from art academies in Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø and Stockholm. Huse stages objects and creatures, and lets them speak on his behalf about work and leisure, and the position of the animal in a human centered world. Recently exhibited in Palmera (NO) and Hjorten Sculpture Park (SE). Upcoming exhibitions in SKAL Contemporary in Skagen (DK), Oplandia Center for Contemporary Art in Lillehammer, BO in Oslo (NO).
Johanna Fager (b. 1982, SE), architect and artist working with public art, spatial installations and complex architectural projects. Her focus is often on the human experience of space(s) and their sequences, materiality, sound and the political context. She is educated at KTH School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Art (SE), and Academy of Art Architecture and Design (CZ). Currently working on a site specific public artwork for Svenska Margaretakyrkan Oslo (NO) as a member of the platform Of Public Interest (OPI). She recently received a research grant from Royal Institute of Art (SE).
This open studio is a collaboration within the Architecture Triennale, a new platform for exploration and long-term collaboration between architects, artists and social actors. The triennial is initiated by Färgfabriken as a recurring forum for architecture and urban development, a meeting point for everyone regarding questions about the built environment and the future.
