English, 2014. 264 pages
Design of the printed and the online versions of the catalogue: Mateusz Pęk and Klaudia Wrzask
ISBN 978-91-978807-4-6
The essays in the catalogue reflect upon the wide range of art projects executed within the multi-year project Art Line (2011–2014), where 14 Baltic institutions worked collaboratively to investigate and challenge the concepts of public space, particularly the relationship between the digital and the physical realms. The catalogue responds to the mixed media content of the project and hence exists in two formats, in print and in an extended digital version with more essays and artworks included. In the online catalogue the visitor has access to Art Online, videos, sound works, lectures, documentaries and to an online gallery exhibition about the storytelling project Telling the Baltic.
Art in our public spaces, both in the digital and within the real venues, has been one of the overarching topics as well as experiments in art and digital technologies within the international collaboration Art Line. The project itself derived from the need for a stronger cultural infrastructure in the Baltic region. Art Line was a long-term interdisciplinary cooperation anchored in fourteen art institutions and academies and as a result had created a collaborative platform between Poland, Sweden, Germany, Lithuania and Russia.
Art Line worked on different arenas and locations to meet new audiences through workshops, exhibitions, public space projects, interactive art works, online projects, contests, storytelling activities, conferences and workshops about art and science, art and technology, art and digital media and about art in public space. Artists showed works in gallery/museum settings and in re-located settings at other types of museums and in technology parks. Works were presented outside of the gallery and museum context in the public spaces of our cities: in housing areas; in parks, outside shopping centers and in more unconventional settings: on the sea; by the seafront, as art works on our website and on smart phones or tablets; Art Online and the Mobile Art applications and in cross-media projects combining digital and real space: as artists’ experiments in technology laboratories on the ferries moving between Sweden and Poland, and in arenas beyond.
The European Commission appointed Art Line a Flagship project, and it is now part of the Action Plan for the Baltic Sea Strategy. Art Line is seen as a high quality project with a focus on contemporary art and digital media technologies. The initial project period was 2011–2014, but the network will be developed geographically and conceptually during this year.
The catalogue contains texts by art critics, curators, artists and researchers: Michaela Crimmin, Julia Draganovic, Michał Bieniek, Kuba Szreder, Julita Wójcik, Jacob Lillemose, Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, Agnieszka Wołodźko, Bettina Pelz, Torun Ekstrand, Catharina Gabrielsson, Oscar Guermouche, Agnieszka Kulazinska, Gernot Wolfram, Martin Schibli, Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski, Nina Czegledy and Rona Kopeczky, Monika Fleishmann and Wolfgang Strauss, Luca Farulli, Jakob Ingemansson, Izabela Zolcinska, Jarek Denisiuk, Krzysztof Topolski, Joanna Warsza, Lissa Holloway-Attaway, Nicola Bergström Hansen, Pau Waelder, Iwona Bigos, Jay Bolter, Maria Engberg, Joasia Krysa and Geoff Cox, Rebecca Rouse, Dan Jönsson, Elena Tsvetaeva, Luca Farulli, Rasa Antanaviciute, Lisbeth Lindeborg, Ola Carlsson, Frank Schloesser, Karin Nilsson, Erika Deal and Maria Björkman and Larry Okey Ugwu.
For more information about the project, contact project manager Torun Ekstrand: torun.ekstrand [at] artline-southbaltic.eu
The printed edition is limited. If you would like a free copy of the printed catalogue, please contact blekingemuseum [at] karlskrona.se. There is a cost for postage. The digital catalogue will be sustained until 2019.
The catalogue was made possible through the South Baltic Cross-Border Co-Operation Programme, and partly financed by the European Union (ERDF).
