Publikationen till Cia Kanthis utställning Dark Light är nu tillgänglig! Med texter av Maj Hasager (konstnär och rektor på Konsthögskolan i Malmö), Max Ockborn (konstnär), Linda Pistol (Dj och producent) och Ashik Zaman (curator, skribent och grundare av C-print journal).

Du kan köpa publikationen på Skånes konstförening eller genom att skicka ett e-mail info@skaneskonst.se

Cia Kanthi är 2020 års mottagare av Sven och Ellida Hjorts utställningsstipendium som delas årligen ut av Skånes konstförening till en ung lovande konstnär baserad i Skåne. Curator för utställningen och redaktör för publikationen är Tawanda Appiah.

FÖRORD AV TAWANDA APPIAH

There are artists you meet who leave a lasting impression and Cia Kanthi happens to be one of them. Her artworks are layered and textured, dynamic and expansive, pulsating with a life of their own. She leaves behind an itch on the viewer, something that I have experienced but also heard repeatedly from various visitors who came to see her exhibition at Skånes konstförening. Perhaps it is because of the emotional and physical locations she takes one to, combined with her grasp of technique as a professional artist. She creates moments of time and spatial travel that leave an uncanny feeling. In this publication, Cia Kanthi extends her exhibition Dark Light to the realm of private and intimate spaces.

My first encounter with Kanthi was infused with wonder and intrigue. I remember walking into her studio at Ateljéföreningen opposite Addo (the oldest and largest studio association in Malmö, located in a building that was once upon a time a calculator factory) and feeling a sense of reverence. When she pulled out a portable 1968 Sony Trinitron TV and played her film Frihamnen (2020) I knew we had found a strong contender for the annual Sven and Ellida Hjort’s Exhibition Grant. Her power as an artist is palpable and her work sings with the hours of labour she pours into it, every second of photographing, printing, filming, cutting, sculpting.

The breath of history is a red thread through the line of my curatorial work. It is an obsession, a restless way of making sense of the contemporary landscape. Kanthi shares this historical eye and it connected us and oiled the process of constructing Dark Light into a public exhibition. In her work, we see the place of people in history, and a vibrant appreciation for the everyday. This is made thrilling through Kanthi’s deft powers of precision, deciding what is shown and what is not in an image. It is her world to create, and ours to get lost in.

This publication starts off with Wandering in the gaps of memories: The work of Cia Kanthi by Danish artist and rector of the Malmö Art Academy, Maj Hasager. In this text, Hasager powerfully puts Kanthi’s work into context and also leads her into conversation with the late French writer Georges Perec (1936–1982) and the revolutionary Swedish photo-grapher Cecilia Nelson (1866–1939). Malmö-based artist Max Ockborn poetically reflects on restlessness and production of memory through the work of Kanthi in: Hur man lämnar längtan efter stillhet därför att den lika gärna kan bo i tanken eller i den stunden när man lyckas uppgå i något annat, med andra. We hear the voice of Linda Pistol on page 24 where she shares the process of making the soundscape for Kanthi’s film Night Travel (2020). Ashik Zaman, founder and editor-in-chief of C-print, concludes the publication with his compelling and in-depth review of Dark Light titled Like a chimney you sometimes have to get through the dark before you see the light.

Tack till Kesiena Boom, Maj Hasager, Sixten Hatfield, Albin Hillervik, Hisham och Mahmoud, Hussein Obeid, Max Ockborn, Linda Pistol, Janneke Schoene, Linus Svensson, Ashik Zaman, Terje Östling, Svart & Witt, Lunds konsthall och Skånes konstförenings styrelsen.