Art holds a promise that we as human beings are not bound in essence to our bodies, biologically or mentally. That we can try out different roles, experiment with various (contradictory and competing) voices, and also temporarily inhabit other people’s consciousness. Such role-play creates the potential for an imaginative ability, but also for empathy; to experience the world from a neighbour’s, an enemy’s, a dog’s, or an alien’s perspective. Art also has another potential which is linked to this promise: that art is not exclusively about what it depicts or what it deals with; that a piece of art has the ability to move “outside itself” by establishing a model of thought, a concept, a figuration, a parable, an analogy, a metaphor… The French Surrealist and Sociologist Roger Caillois became interested in the natural phenomenon of mimicry where, for example, insects construct amazing shapes and patterns to protect themselves against their natural enemies. Caillois argues that nature’s mimicry behaviour is over the top, and occasionally even counter-productive. Such behaviours are examples of role-play, absurdity, and festive explosions which are normally associated with art. Caillois argues that travesty, camouflage, and intimidation – which are mimicry’s three keywords – are not primarily linked to evolution, but instead prove nature’s ability to produce excessive, useless, and superfluous matter; proving agency beyond human agency.

Can we keep believing in this potential in art – and ultimately in our imagination – in times when people are constantly stopped in their tracks, called back, examined, and questioned due to the appearance of their bodies? We all seem to be increasingly bound by our bodies’ external and absolute boundaries, by our rights and our affiliations. Insisting on art’s promise of trying new voices, of working with inner contradictions, and moving between different roles may seem like a privileged person’s inability or unwillingness to see the world as it is.

But what is the alternative? To say that these transformations, the ability to mimic, is no longer possible or only available to a few persons? Do we not then give up the possibility to identify with another person and the ability to empathise? Art is not autonomous; its actions and expression have conditions and constraints, but perhaps it may keep some of its promises.

Faith in the ability to empathise and fantasise still seems strong amongst the Master’s students of Art who are exhibiting their work at Konstack’s Degree Exhibition. Interest in temporality is prominent; we live in the past, the present, and the future. What can a ghost-like family photograph from Dalarna, a future Swedish industrial community, and traces of fascist Portuguese architecture reveal about our present time? You will find interests in nature, ecology, and in the extra-human world. You will find a computer animated version of C. elegans, a roundworm which is used as a model organism within genetics and molecular biology; a self-generating instrument which appears to live a life of its own; you will find documentation of a proclaimed nature reserve which includes hardwood forests, rocky grounds, residential neighbourhoods and an industrial plot. We will also see a lecture performance during which we will step in and out of a European Roller’s consciousness, which is possible through art, if you were wondering. You will also find an interest in social zones and states; places where we are urgently forced to relate to fellow human beings and acts where we (re)invent, re-enact and manifest our identity and our ideals: the awkward dressing room, the demanding office environment, the men’s group; and on the community-shaping Instagram. Painting can also give social zones and social use a central role, for example through paintings that can be folded, hung up, taken down, or be used as a picnic blankets. Even the role of the mother can be seen as a social zone – a state that reshapes the social and political consciousness. Choreographed acts, events, actions – imagination does not stand in contradiction to clarity and to a critical approach.

Magnus Bärtås, Professor of Fine Art