Art STORM     Art STORM is a Nordic art project showing ten contemporary artists in five Nordic cities Stavanger, Tampere, Odense, Reykjavik and Malmö. The interest for the meeting between the fast images of advertising and images that seeks another dialogue, art gave rise to Art STORM. From the 23th of July photographs made by ten Nordic artists encourages us to think and stop by JCDecaux's advertising signs in the public space centrally located in each city. The participating artists from Sweden Anna Nordquist Andersson and FA+ (Ingrid Falk and Gustavo Aguerre), from Iceland Karlotta Blöndahl and Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, from Finland Jouko Lehtola and Riitta Päiväläinen, from Denmark Thierry Geoffroy, Colonel and Katya Sander, from Norway Eline Mugaas and Robert Sot are showing ten photographs. The artists have from their own artistic expressions reflected about the complex and many-faceted theme: migration, identity and globalisation. The photographs that have been seasoned with humour and irony are also thematically connected to ten other images exhibited in art and culture institutions in the five cities. The artists examine in their works the forced and voluntary mobility that increases, and the constantly changing and many-faceted identities that have also grown with the pace of globalisation. At the same time it is asked if the Nordic cities are places for many voices, places where everybody has the right to live in peace? We live in a time of constantly changing identity-stories. In today's society human beings construct their identity over and over again according to the increased choices concerning carrier, sexuality, clothing, music and eating habits. For some it also means a free or forced choice of culture and country to live in. Thanks to the artworks placement in the public space they also raise questions about the ability for encounters. The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman who in his own life has experienced a forced transfer has stated that in an effectively working city-environment it is typical that meetings are casual and without history. Our meetings are many and diverse and can at times also be more or less superficial. The feeling of insecurity have increased. It is also a question about a worldwide zero-play, where the ones dreaming of freedom are maintained at the expense of others non-security. Luckily the whole image of the city is not characterised by a non-meeting. According to Bauman the capacity to not meet teach one to handle the many-faceted. In the city we have learned to take space for ourselves, but also to give to others. It is a question of tolerance, about a constant negotiation with and sharing of the public-space. Reality can not in an easy way be expressed in works of art but it can make us see things in another way. Art has the power to expand our perception of the world but can also concentrate the essence of it. Contemporary art often reflects upon the reality we live in, is surrounded with and carry with us. The theme for Art STORM is current in which many can recognise themselves in or which mirror situations that come up and are going on in society. Art STORM exhibits 20 artworks in total. Ten images are shown on the advertising signs of JCDecaux in Stavanger, Tampere, Odense and Reykjavik. In Malmö ten photographs are exhibited on 120 advertising signs. Ten additional works are shown at Malmö Konsthall in Malmö, Sølvberget Stavanger Kulturhus in Stavanger, Kulttuuritalo Telakka in Tampere, Cafébiografen / Brandts Klœdefabrik in Odense Reykjavik Art museum, Reykjavik. In Vejle Art Museum in Vejle (DK) the exhibition CLOCKWISE - New Nordic Contemporary Art will be shown until the 18th August and the 1 of September 2002 the exhibition will open at Nordic House in Reykjavik. The exhibition touches and at the same time deepens at parts the same thematic as Art STORM. The exhibitions are in them self-an ethnographic mapping of the constant changing cultural field. Nine artists mirror the cultural displacement in relation to identity, spots and social environments - including the art world. The exhibition is produced by NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, in collaboration with Vejle Artmuseum, Vejle (DK) and The Nordic House, Reykjavik. Read more: www.nifca.org/clockwise Art STORM is initiated and produced by Konstfrämjandet Skåne in collaboration with The Nordic Cultural Fund and Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, NIFCA. Cultureproducers: Anneli Berglund and Kristina Papai. Welcome!