Meryem Saadi

Meryem är doktorand i konstvetenskap.

Avhandlingens titel är Negotiating vulnerability: The case of small artist-run initiatives in rural Sweden.

Forskning

In the last decade, several small art organisations emerged in rural Sweden. Most of them have been founded by artists and art workers in areas where there were previously no galleries or museums displaying contemporary art. Inspired by decolonial, feminist or activist practices, most of these new initiatives are self-organised, non-hierarchical and work in collective and cross-disciplinary ways.

Despite their limited resources and the lack of pre-established audiences and art infrastructures in their localities, most of these artist-run organisations managed to develop interesting strategies, tools, and forms of working with contemporary art and artists. Taking place most of the time outside “the white cube” that dominates in urban art institutions and commercial galleries, their experimental practices do not place the artwork at the centre of the artistic enquiry but focus instead on long-term, collective projects that are research-based, site-specific and open-ended. Through their work, they often blur the lines between contemporary art and the everyday, art and activism or between art and the social.

Meryem Saadi's research project will investigate what these organisations have learned from their state of vulnerability. How did they use or reach beyond it to produce experimental artistic and curatorial methodologies and practices? How can this knowledge be formulated in order to be shared with others, both inside and outside the art world? The case studies examined in the dissertation are Kultivator, Rejmyre Art Lab Center for Peripheral Studies, and Gylleboverket.