MAPPING

For this initial exhibition in the ‘Common Ground’-exhibition series, Celsius Projects invited artists and researchers who in their own ways relate to methods of tracing and mapping, to calibrating out positions and developing new or alternative maps.

Maps are inherently political and enact upon the world a description that does not describe everything that is there. Maps don’t tell you who lives or works in the listed buildings; they do not say anything about the plants that bloom or the birds and rabbits that nest nearby, and neither will they tell you who owns the properties you may occupy.* The surrounding industrial area of Celsius Projects with small businesses, studio collectives, car mechanics, rehearsal spaces, and artist-run galleries are all threatened to disappear in the near future like in other parts of the city. What will the map look like then?

The artists Tinne Zenner and Stacey de Voe both exhibited films that find meaning through an investigation into physical spaces and their history. They present a vision of reality that is porous and complex as the stories of humans that live and work in these factories and houses are made visible. Laleh Foroughanfar presented a text that is a love letter to the street Norra Grängesbergsgatan in Malmö which is an industrial area not far from here that has gone through its own transformations over the years. All these works speak to the maps that humans make and the emotional and political histories that must not be forgotten or pass us by without feeling them.  

*In Sweden, the ‘surveyor’s map’ (lantmäteriet’s website) does actually show who owns buildings.