Trondheim Open 2012: The City Trough the Prism of the Artist
06.–09. sept
In October 2011, the first Trondheim Open was held. A successful mobilization of Trondheim's art scene.
It is important that there is a rich selection of organizations, institutions and actors for art in Trondheim and the region. Trondheim Open wants to emphasize the necessity of each other's peculiarities, in that we have different roles and are dependent on each other's function in order to be a dynamic art scene in growth. This interaction forms a larger whole, which is crucial for the art ecosystem to be able to grow.
Recent years' investment in art and culture in Norway as an industry; where art is used as instrumentalisation and reputation building, one now sees a stronger tendency towards self-organization as a strategy for the exercise of artistic freedom. Where people come together to form new patterns and organize their own structure, as a spontaneous formation of form without it being a question of external control that becomes a recognizable product, but an experimental platform. Where new siding is plowed.
Trondheim Open is a self-organized structure; a test site in organic form, a rhizome. We who have worked with the content of TO2012 have let ourselves be driven by this form, accepted ideas and the impulses that have come, brought forth, rejected and found. We have treated this year's title, The City through the Prism of the Artist, with an open attitude to the agenda, where curiosity has been driven and the situation has not been articulated. TO2012 asks: Can self-organization be the new formation project? We have discussed our city via longing, Uffa, doubt, Nyhavna, film, resistance, Torget, time, books, the municipality's program for art in public spaces, and Generator (2007) which was also an attempt to talk about contemporary art and urban processes. The conversation must continue. We have lifted our gaze beyond this city and searched for voices we miss. We have found and invited people with a rare drive, who want to offer their unique art, while the city's art scene invites to their exhibition rooms, studios and projects. Everything crosses. Anything can happen.
Ann-Cathrin Hertling and Elin Andreassen - On behalf of the working group for Trondheim Open 2012
