Since 1976, the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) and Gotlands Kommun have made possible a four-week stay each year for a: visual artist on the Swedish island of Gotland or in Westfalen-Lippe. The exchange takes place every year in September.
The Westphalian artist are accommodated in the artists' settlement of the Brucebo Foundation in Sjäsö near Visby. Since 2017, the Künstlerhaus Dortmund has been the Westphalian residence for the Swedish guests.
During the respective stays, the scholarship holders have the opportunity to exhibit. The organizer is the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. The local organization is carried out by the managing director of the Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dr. Pia Wojtys.
Siri Iversen-Ejve describes herself as an abstract figurative painter - everyone can experience her work in their own unique way. The Swedish artist loves nature, and many of her works are reminiscent of details from nature, which she develops using her own artistic language. She spends a lot of time intensively researching materials and colors and usually works on different projects at the same time.
At the beginning of April 2024, the artist will be showing her new project I have no roots left. The roots that I had exist in the road. Siri Iversen-Ejve deals with the road as a sign and as part of our everyday lives. For her, there is something fascinating about roads and how we humans move forward, which path we take and how the road changes our lives.
Exhibition: 5 - 7 March 2024
Opening, 5 April, 7 pm
It all began in the summer of 2023, when Siri Iversen-Ejve photographed various streets and collected objects from the streets she passed. The project took a new turn after a stay in Dortmund in September 2023, when an unforeseen situation arose and she had to return home early. She did not take the canvas she had brought from Germany back into the house, but went into the woods to bury it. Winter came and the canvas remained underground for a long time.
In January 2024, Siri Iversen-Ejve began to dig up part of the canvas to turn it back into art. To this end, Siri Iversen-Ejve filmed herself during the excavation, and back in her studio she worked intensively on the subject of the "root", making studies, painting and drawing roots in all possible forms. In letters to herself, she described the process and her feelings.
I have no roots left. The roots that I had exist in the road makes use of a wide variety of media: video, painting, object, text and sound. The common thread spans between the subject of the "road" as a kind of root of being human and the artist herself.
During my stay in Dortmund I will work on my multimedia piece "Kingdom Come", which will contain elements of electronic sound / music, organ, voice and images. For this project I see Hildegard von Bingen as my teacher / mentor. I see her as a role model for a multimedia artist. There are many interesting contextual differences, but I also find significant similarities and resonances when I listen, read and look at her work. I am interested in gaining a deeper understanding of her life, her vision and her music. I am also interested in what their artistic processes were like.
I am also planning a trip of several days with audio recorder and camera to the ruins in Disibodenberg and the abbey in Ruppertsberg.
I grew up on Gotland and work as a free-lance photographer and with my own art projects. During my time in Dortmund I will go on with my works on the photo series "Insula",
where I make pictures which put man in center. Insula means island in latin, but is also the namn of the fifth lobe in the brain.
The fifth lobe receives signals about the status of the body’s inner organs, also pain impulses from every organ in the body reach here. In the serie I mirror a status of isolation, to be caught inside yourself. To be your own island. I do not permit faces to be seen. I want the body and the room to express and make a picture of the status of the human being, not of the actual person.
So far I have only worked in Gotland, in environments well known to me and with people near me. It will be very exciting to plunge into the surroundings of Dortmund and move my project further on, from my finds of inspiration and meetings during my stay.
Torbjörn Limé works with means of painting, photography and installation. Place, environment and context are important starting points for his work, which moves between colorful abstraction and documentary references. With an emphasis on color, form, illusion, and perception, his creative practice engages with themes that revolve around contemporary social and economic structures.
In Torbjörn Limé's relatively recently launched project, "The Labourer Suite," issues of identity, class, labor, and nature have emerged in a post-industrial context and become key thematic concepts. The underlying motif is his childhood in Trollhättan, formerly one of Sweden's largest industrial cities. The lingering atmosphere of the past, which makes itself felt in a post-industrial present and in the individual, is an important theme for the artist.
Limé will continue to develop his project "The Labourer Suite" during the one-month fellowship at Künstlerhaus Dortmund and conduct research in the Ruhr region. His exhibition at Künstlerhaus Dortmund will be a "work in progress" presentation including painting, photography, drawing and objects with references to both his birthplace Trollhättan and Dortmund.
Presentation: 19 September 2020, 4 - 11 pm
in the context of the DEW21 Museumsnacht
Karl Ahlqvist was the Gotland fellow of the Landschaftverband Westfalen-Lippe in September 2019. As part of this fellowship, he goes down in the residency history of the Künstlerhaus as the first writer to do so. During his stay, he wrote his first novel and was in constant contact with his publisher.
Elfrida Nilsdotter Ahlby is a guest at the Künstlerhaus in September 2018. Elfrida Nilsdotter Ahlby works as an artist with textiles and painting. She tries to combine knowledge of traditional craftsmanship with her own skills in products of visual art. Recently, the artist has been working on embroideries that combine her love of color, the textile material and the slowness enforced by threads. The tactile qualities of the textiles are an important part of the creative process, where the thoughtful work on embroidery provides much space for reflection as it is created. Currently, she is increasingly creating tapestries, prompted by a desire to work in collage form. In doing so, the artist invokes the long Swedish tradition of combining embroidered text and images, which were often made with moralizing content.
Presentation: 22 - 30 September 2018
Opening on Friday, 21 September 2018 at 7 pm
Greeting: Dr. Peter Schmieder, Künstlerhaus Dortmund
Greeting: Dr. Barbara Rüschoff-Parzinger, Head of Cultural Affairs, Landschaftverband Westfalen-Lippe
In the fall of 2017, Kristina Frank and Maria Holmqvist worked on a video-mapping project at the Künstlerhaus. Kristina works as an artist with the media of video, animation and performance, and Maria works as a dancer.
After Kristina initially focused her work on the area within the image quadrangle, in order to enhance atmospheric values she has begun to work with space, turning body and object into animated surfaces. The character of the space, as well as the industrial past of the artist's house and the dark cellar shafts that used to lead to the mines, had a great influence on the design and inspiration of the work.
Exhibition opening on Friday, 29 September 2017 at 7:00 pm
Welcome and introduction:
Heike Herold, Landschaftsverband Westfalen Lippe, Cultural Department.
Dr. Peter Schmieder, Managing Director of the Künstlerhaus Dortmund