"There is a need for new angles and visions in a world that is being destroyed by human consumption and greed, where inequality is growing and nature is being tamed. Artists have quirky insights and can be birth attendants to find new ways for all living things to be here together.”
This is what visual artists Signe Vad and Nanna Gro Henningsen say the Syndicate of Creatures, which is among the nominees for BKF prize Artist-run Exhibition Places of the Year 2021.
The platform opened under the name KRÆ Syndicat in Kødbyen in Copenhagen in June 2017, after which the project has developed into an art and intervention group and nomadic platform with an English name.
“In this open form, we find room to work more broadly. We create art projects, organize conferences, curate exhibitions and exhibition programmes. We have no physical or structural framework that defines how we work. Instead, we have an ideological point of departure. We use art and poetic collaboration as an opening to disrupt our petrified mindsets and awaken dulled senses,” say the two artists.
Voices of Pythias #3. Performance of Mycelium. April 2021.
Artistic oracles
An example of how the Syndicate of Creatures does just that, is the comprehensive performance program Pythia's Voices – Speaking to the Times, which was completed in early summer this year, and which resumes and continues from September.
“The idea is that the times need other voices. So we invite artists, poets and performance artists to talk about Time with speech performances in the street space around our second project Office of Emergencies at Vesterbrogade 101 in Copenhagen. The idea is to create a mobile 'speakers corner', and the artists are invited as oracle speakers," say Signe Vad and Nanna Gro Henningsen.
Every Thursday in spring intake Pythia's Voices – Speaking to the Times a bit of the pavement, where an artist stood up and performed a speech for the audience present, the neighbours, the traffic and random passers-by.
“It was a great success and really fun. Many people came and listened, and all passers-by noticed. Some stopped in the middle of the rush-hour stress on the way home, others experienced the art of twisting their heads as they passed. All the surrounding taverns, pizzerias, shops, etc. knew what was going on and helped us with e.g. to borrow electricity,” they say.
Voices of Pythias #6. Performance by Jeanette Land Schou. May 2021.
Necessary artistic biodiversity
It is important to the people behind it the Syndicate of Creatures to give everyone access to experience the artists' voices. That is why the spring performances were streamed live Voices of Pythias Facebook Page. In addition, all 16 performances were video-documented, and an edition is being edited, which will be exhibited in the Office of Emergency, and which will be posted with English subtitles on www.voicesofpythia.zone for autumn.
What role do you think artists' self-organized projects play in art life - and in society?
"The self-organized projects give artists the freedom to set the framework for their artistic work themselves and also for the dissemination of it. In the artist-run collegial community, you can experiment spontaneously with form and content, because they are most often small units driven by desire and necessity with the artistic expression as a point of departure.
Pythia's voices # 9. Performance by Ursula Andkjær Olsen. June 2021.
"The artist's starting point and optics are often radically different from those of the institutions and what is developed in that space of opportunity will also affect the overall art scene through the creation of diverse alternatives in organizational forms, artistic expressions and statements. The self-organised and the institutions are part of the same ecosystem and without biodiversity the large animals will starve in the end too," say Signe Vad and Nanna Gro Henningsen.
If you had to name 1 thing that could improve the conditions for artist-run places, what would it be?
“Help for operations. Better opportunity to apply for operating support for those who facilitate their colleagues and develop new types of opportunity spaces and distinctive thinking in the art world. It is hard to constantly apply for projects and to have to tamely, institutionally and inorganically define entire projects and exhibition programs in advance. And besides, having to learn to formulate projects as if you were an art historian is boring and inhibiting.”
All photos on this page: the Syndicate of Creatures / Voices of Pythia 2021.
Voices of Pythias #8. Performance by Elijah Mesayer. May 2021.