Curator: Göran Green, Pontus Kyander

1a space is pleased to present the much anticipated exhibition ‘Domestic Affairs: Malmö, Sweden – Hong Kong’ by Göran Green & Pontus Kyander from 12 Sept through 27 Sept 2009. Opening reception and live performance will be held on 11 Sept, 2009 (Friday) at 7pm – 8:30pm.

Malmö is a city in a state of strong transition. Since 2000, it is connected to the Danish capital Copenhagen by a bridge, which in effect is starting to merge the two cities. Economy has been booming, population growing, a collective identity as a working class city (for some decade in recession) and actually the departing point of Swedish workers movement has been changed to something much different. More confident, more youthful, more boisterous, maybe. The latter is being reflected in recent architecture, where Santiago Calatrava’s Turning Torso, the tallest building in Sweden, has dramatically changed the cities previously rather flat skyline. A new university adds to the swing from working class and blue collar identity to a much more gentrified population. At the same time, a huge inflow of immigrants has also changed the cities demographic outlook, with Malmö today accommodating the largest Muslim community in Northern Europe, adding very visible segregation and social denigration to the cheerful prospects of the ”new” Malmö.

With a recently established and prospering art academy, several important public galleries and independent art spaces in and around the city, the art scene has also been changing rapidly. So while identity issues in Hong Kong might be about grasping changing political issues and aspects relating to language and other differences with Mainland China, the art scene in Malmö is more affected by the changes in social structures and in the relationship to the history of the Swedish ”welfare state”, which has been under strong deconstruction. Social issues, given Sweden’s former role as a welfare Utopia, have a central position in Swedish debate, and in Malmö many of them are made extremely visible.

There is a strong tendency in young Swedish art to work with current realities, everyday objects, but with a drive towards the ornamental as well as the surreal and poetic. Expression is often kept low key, while materials are simple, and motives usually found in contemporary phenomena. This description does actually also ascribe to the young Hong Kong scene. But since local realities differ just as much as individuals differ, the two parts of the project will mirror some quite contrasting approaches, collectively as well as individually.