HEAT/ENERGY

For humans, the mammal that does not have fur, three factors are necessary for survival: energy, water and heat. Without nutrition our body stops functioning, without water it dries out, without heat we freeze to death. We are a vulnerable animal species. Yet we have come to master the planet in good and evil. One explanation is that this happened because of our useful thumbs, another that our brain capacity dropped. It is undeniable that our ability to communicate, collaborate and create effective societies (as do the ants and other social beings) is unmistakable. Many claim that our strong tendency to create non-material values: religious communities, literatures and artistic traditions is a factor that has been crucial in the history of the family.

Energy, water and heat. The three things were at the center of Kummelholmen's operations until 1997, when the building was taken out of use as an oil-fired hot-water center, supplier of hot water and energy to the surrounding Springberg. Since the architecturally powerful and K-marked concrete box was re-commissioned in 2013, it has become a center for less tangible but equally noticeable processes: of the thermal plant has become an art hall, where no exhibited work can avoid entering into dialogue with the environment and there the room itself becomes an obvious part of the activities of the artists and curators and of the visitor's experience.

It is as a call to the chosen artists to rethink and reformulate both the character and history of the premises as to take the gigantic grip on reflecting on the role of culture in contemporary times as we chose the central concepts of heat and energy as the theme of the exhibition. . Here there are opportunities to relate to both technology history and architectural history, to raise issues of sustainability, resources and ecology, to discuss both aesthetic and social and philosophical problems in artistic form. Heat / energy: art in interaction with the environment, present in dialogue with modernism, intangible artistic values in contrast to a hardening and increasingly utility- and money-controlled social climate.

Jonas Ellerström

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PRESS:

DN: Konst med energi och korskopplingar på Kummelholmen, 29 september 2021

Mitt i, Skärholmen: Tillbaka till panncentralens kärna i energifull utställning, 23 september 2021

Aftonbladet: Ett myller av genrer är det som skapar energi, Ulrika Stahre, 17 september 2021

Konsten.net: Heat/Energy på Kummelholmen, Windy Fur Rundgren, 21 september 2021

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With support by the Swedish Arts Council

With support by Iaspis – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Artists

With support by the city of Stockholm

With support by Region Stockholm