HOW / HUR
2000
A collaboration with artist Kristina Matousch.
HOW / HUR is a streetwork in co-operation with Kristina Matousch, conducted in the streets Hornsgatan, Drottninggatan and Sveavägen in Stockholm.
HOW / HUR was a project that was mapping the knowledge about every day objects. We had taken upon ourselves the task of manufacturing three objects with the help of the bypasser’s knowledge, this without having acquired any prior theoretic information on the various processes. We gathered information among people passing in the street about materials and methods to be able to build or mix these objects our selves. HOW / HUR was structured so that we could use only advises that was shared by someone we met. We assumed the role of the specialist in order to influence the process of production out of our experience of how different advise turned out when practiced.
The HOW / HUR project sprung out of a need to look away from the expertise and try to find other ways to information than trough generally accepted science, since the expertise nowadays has become almost the only approach used to control the production process. We had a feeling that craftmanship among people was vanishing. Most people would rather turn to some appropriate chain store in order to find a solution for whatever needed than asking their neighbor.
A coiled mattress was made outside of a bed shop, a jar of skin lotion was composed by a perfume shop and a sausage was prepared by a hotdog stand. The three objects had been chosen according to their generic appearance so that the discussion could focus on their content. HOW / HUR took place at three different out door locations in Stockholm in October 2000. The locations were chosen in order to provide a comparison between the product we where about to explore the public knowledge about and the corresponding manufactured item –outside the mattress store Kungsängen at Hornsgatan, the perfumery Soleil at Drottninggatan and a kiosk at Sveavägen.
In the publication ‘Publikation (33) HUR’ a diary is presented with selected photographs and fragments from the conversations, one day after the other, that led to progress or not in the production processes. HOW / HUR was made with funding for artistic development from the Royal Institute of Art.
The publication is re-published by the art blog tsnok.se.
