Project report - Januari 2009

During 2008, PRODUKT has worked on the project möte09, financed by Konstnärsnämnden and Nordic Culture Point, according to the following report.

Financing and co-productions
We have worked on eighteen funding applications and so far received support from eight. We are still waiting for some decisions and have a few more to do. We have established the forms for cooperation and negotiated with our co-producers. During autumn, two producers have spent a week in each "meeting-city" to plant, develop and establish the project together with the co-producing organizations. Our goal has been, among other things, to create a common understanding of the project's vision, objectives and language. To have a discussion about what the project is and what it wants - and how we talk about it are important aspects of a co-production, as there is often a kind of hasty "translation" that could counter the words and thoughts we work with. For example, the "meeting" becomes a "festival" or a "lab" in the program, a "proposal" becomes a "performance" or a "work-in-progress" etc.. And because one level of the project is dealing with how our choice of words creates opportunities for different approaches, it has been of great importance to us that everyone involved understand how we think and why we make the choises we make, as well as to open up for further proposals and critique.

To work at each location has been a very good way to deepen the cooperation which runs a risk of becoming superficial. In each city, we have collected lists of names of potential participants. We have had meetings with a variety of local players (universities, institutions, individual artists and companies), to present and discuss the project, get feedback and tips, and discuss possible opportunities for interaction.

In Stockholm and Malmö we spent quite a lot of time on finding the venue/space that would suit the project best. In Malmö we chose Garaget, which is very exciting both as a space and in its function as a citizen-driven culture and dialogue center. In Stockholm, we chose Weld, whose activities are well in line with what we want to explore. At the same time, Moderna Dansteatern, Dansstationen and Touuring network Slingan remains as as important co-producers.

To find the best models for co-production is an important aspect of the work to expand the discussion on ways of thinking and distribute art. "How can each player invest in a way that would benefit ideas of the project in the best way?" has been an important issue, compared to the more common order of "How can the project best be fitted into the general solutions offered by today's established structures and ways of working?". So in the same way that our use of the term 'choreography' need not necessarily result in what is traditionally seen as 'dance', the collaboration with a 'guest performance venue' doesn't mean that we have to use that space if it is not best suited - but we can still find fruitful collaborations.

A number of additional co-producers are positive to cooperation, others are planning parallel events and others are interested in disseminating information about the project. Adekwhat has supported the project with an office space the whole year.

One example of the artistic decisions that are inextricably linked with the negotiations surrounding the production has been the approach to marketing and not least the time of the meetings with the audience. We have decided to not determine when the meeting with the audience will happen - because that would be a very controlling aspect in terms of opportunities to explore the format of meetings with an audience. If we for example, decide that it will take place on Thursday at 19-20.30, we have created approximately the most conventional conditions for what can be done (from a choreographic perspective). Now, we try to create a model which means that eg marketing must adapt to the dynamic and spontaneous process - instead of vice versa, which is usually the case. If the participants meet their audience at 14.00, this will likely be a different audience than the one that usually comes at 19.00. If they decide to do a proposal every day for five minutes the experience will be different than if it lasts 60 minutes, or for that matter for 9 hours. Maybe they choose to name the whole week "Proposal" - which would mean that the whole week is a kind of 'piece' or they can call the whole week "Price of a coffee" - which would turn the entire meeting process to a public space, where the audience can respond to the process for two weeks non-stop, etc..

The participants and the development of the concept
Timewise, the greatest work has been to collect tips, search for and to get information about the possible participants. During this process, it has also become clearer what kind of people we are looking for. This process has in turn developed the project's theme in a clearer direction. The development has partly happened through critical evaluation of the project MEETING SWEDEN 06. We have, among other things, come to the conclusion that we want to clarify more specific questions, that will direct both the process and the search for participants. Ie, the main thing is this time not to meet, but to meet in order work with the theme meeting. The shift may seem a small detail, but has been crucial for how think the project.

Another shift (that has generated many discussions in terms of financing and production) is that MEETING SWEDEN 06 was a "dance project" and möte09 is a "choreographic project". This means we have been looking for people from the perspective of a number of issues surrounding format and meeting, as opposed to "external" aspects, such as categorization on the basis of profession, nationality, etc. The result is that we have found quite a lot of individuals who are relatively hard to categorize, not least because they are often critical to their own formats (choreography in the form of a meeting, theater in the form of letters, reading as collective production, art in the form of reality roll playing games, etc.) . It is important to us that all participants are invited as individuals and not representatives of "their genre" or "their country", which in some ways was the case in MEETING SWEDEN 06.

An exciting political discussion that follows is about the different agendas of financial distribution, as well as the categorization of people; which country does a person "represent" who grew up in one country, was trained in another, is a resident of a third, and working in a fourth? ("Should we use Nordic money? Swedish? Local?") How are we to deal with concepts such as diversity when we're looking for people dealing with issues that are particularly acute in certain parts of certain cultures? When is a nation primarily using artists for political branding? What is the diversity within a social category, and in what ways do we lump people who think very differently together in the same category? And who do we exclude, through our thematic choices and our interests?

That the participants show an interest in working in groups and have an interest in the format we suggest through möte09, has, naturally, been important. It has also been important for us to find people who we didn't know before, who exist outside of our network and that are new to the context in which the meeting takes place.

This has obviously been a time-consuming and learning process. Now, at the beginning of the year, we have contact with around 30 participants (of which about 60% are not based in Sweden) who can and want to be involved in the project. We feel that we have reached many of our goals for the construction of the groups and are very much looking forward to see what can happen in the meeting between them. We have now made a a revised budget that sets the framework for how we continue, not least in terms of how many people we can employ. In January and February, we will contract the participants, post presentations on the website and book travels, and then focus more on marketing, media and the process of producing "toolboxes" (with tasks, "game-rules", concrete activities and reference material) for each meeting.

Web page
In policy discussions with co-producers, we decided that the project as far as possible should be "it's own author" - in order to be as free as possible in formulations and proposals, as well as to only attract collaborators that are interested in the ideas rather than using is as a space for marketing themselves. This discussion suggested, among other things, that the project should have it's own website an not be tied to any organization. This site is currently developing in collaboration with web designer Sofia Sundström (konfront). The homepage is now a kind of a prologue, a prerequisite that will be filled during the project. It will be an important meeting place where people can follow the process and join the flow of information.

The focus of the web construction is that the participants and users/the public can discuss and comment, and enable it to function as a dynamic archive for the material to produce the project. Our hope is that blogs will become a place for discussion among participants, the project team and the audience - and that this forum can and will be used also after the project. The clarification of the framework and discussion of the project's artistic formulations (meeting choreography, create movement through structural organization, format of meetings, proposals, etc.) is a continuous process that we hope can develop and be formed through the website. Some issues are particularly important and interesting to refine and clarify, and can provide examples of discussions on the blog. Possibly, we will invite guest bloggers to reflect on various concepts and issues.

One ambition of the project is precisely to clarify aspects of an artistic process that are often taken for granted, that are "invisible", or seen as separate from what could be viewed as "artistic". By highlighting and articulating the "background" process within cultural/political structures, funding, representation, structuring of partnerships, all the way to the discussion in the bar after the artistic proposal, we hope to contribute to the discussion of what art can be, how major choises and small details during the procces of a production also means active political and philosophical statements and positioning. We wish to look at how a project's format affects what the project ultimately does, what it generates and how it interacts in its specific context as well as in a social context.

Closing
Having the opportunity to spend this much work on the project's first phases, is a great progress for PRODUKT as an organization, since we are arguing that more aspects of art production are regarded as part of the artistic process.