Glas är massa i rörelse

Project Moving Mass

Eva Arnqvist, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Ingela Johansson, Åsa Jungnelius, Caroline Mårtensson, Malin Pettersson Öberg

Introduction to the book Glass is Never Still-it is Moving Mass:

Moving Mass is an artistic exploration of a place in transformation. To be exact, an area in the east of Småland known as “Glasriket”: the Kingdom of Crystal. The project was initiated by the artist Ingela Johansson, born and raised in Boda in a family that has worked in the glass industry for generations. Johansson invited her colleagues Eva Arnqvist, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Åsa Jungnelius, Caroline Mårtensson and Malin Pettersson Öberg to accompany her on this investigation, and to create representations of the impressions and experiences of the place and the process of trans- formation it is undergoing. What is entailed in the transition from an industrial society to a post-industrial knowledge economy, from thriving rural communities to a de- populated countryside? What role has glass played historically — as a utility object, a work of art, an industry, a technology, a craft, object, idea and community — and what is its current situation?

The project approaches these questions from the perspectives of six different artists. In Shifting Positions — a Study in Red, Eva Arnqvist has investigated how the community of Kosta has been affected socially, symbolically, and materially in the transition from industry to the experiential economy. Following a long internship at a glassworks, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst has reflected on the working body and the dream of The Perfect Product. This has become the theme of a film, as well a series of talks and sculptures. Ingela Johansson has, in her work In the Light and Shade of the Ornaments — a Rehearsal, reconstructed the history of labour migration from Sudeten- land and the knowledge transfer of engraving techniques from Bohemia, which contributed to the success of the Swedish glass industry and the construction of the welfare state. Åsa Jungnelius, who lives and works in the Kingdom of Crystal, reflects in her autobiographical work Look, a Commodity That Can Speak! on what it is like to live there and experience the transition from representation to independent practice. In Reverberation, Caroline Mårtensson has conducted laboratory analyses of plants taken from some of the most polluted glassworks in Småland, letting them bear testimony to the clean-up problems faced by the region’s municipalities and citizens. Finally, Malin Petterson Öberg’s film, Reading Glass, is a cultural-historical reading of the significance of glass for Sweden and of the construction of a modern society; a reading that also reflects on its cracks and failed promises.

Visits have been carried out around Småland over the three years that this project has run. It was initiated in the spring of 2014, with a shared period of work in the Kingdom of Crystal, and was introduced to the public with a traditional hyttsill, hot shop herring, at The Glass Factory in Boda in April 2015. That autumn, the Moving Mass exhibition opened at Kalmar Konstmuseum, curated by the museum’s director at that time, Bengt Olof Johansson. The exhibition was accompanied by an ambitious public programme and closed in February 2016 with the conference Art and the Manifestation of Social Change: the Artist’s Role as Knowledge Producer and the Art Institution as a Host for Cross-Disciplinary Enquiries, planned by the curator Lisa Rosendahl. In the autumn, the artists’ works were inte- grated into The Glass Factory’s permanent exhibition and further events were hosted. The book you are now holding in your hand, designed by Jonas Williamsson and edited by Axel Andersson, is the concluding part of the project and is produced in partnership with Konstfrämjandet.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to Moving Mass. Collaborators and financial backers, residents and professionals in the Kingdom of Crystal, the general public, visitors, participants, colleagues, friends and families. We would like to express particular thanks to Kalmar Konstmuseum and Bengt Olof Johansson, who believed in our idea from the beginning, and to The Glass Factory and Maja Heuer, to Lisa Rosendahl for her work with the conference, to Axel Andersson for his work with the book, to the Swedish Art Council and the Swedish Art Grants Committee for key financial support, as well as to the Regional Administration of Kalmar County, the municipality of Nybro, and Konstfrämjandet.