ARBETE - CONSULTING ON MATHEMATICS, TIME & SPACE

Galleri PROJECT. October, 1989, Stockholm. Solo
Installation with 3 sculptures (tv, stepladder, turntable, super8 projector, lamp, cables), super-8 film, booklet, text, photos, performance.

Work 1: photographing and filming in Prague, July 1989. Work 2: projection of negatives, August 1989. Work 3: booklet, August-September 1989. Work 4: super 8 film, September 1989.

This work deals with historical and sociological problems. We have treated architecture, its power, time and human spaces. Our aim was that, Arbete 3: the booklet, would create reflections in the viewer. That the pictures would activate each individual’s inheritance, as codes to memories, experiences, taught knowledge and other things. One of the aim’s of the text is to deconstruct the aesthetical experience from the pictures. In the installation, we used 3 objects which worked towards and against each other, while presenting Arbete 3: the leaflet and Arbete 4: the super 8 film. We performed as consultants and worked each day from nine to five. The film is a piece of mathematical work. Consisting of a geometrical line, time and space. October 1989. Stockholm. Åsa Lie, Jadran Sturm

See the below excerpt from a talk between Merzedes Sturm-Lie (artist and daughter) and Åsa Lie.

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Sculpture 1: Lamp with cable system. Sculpture 2: Stepladder with TV and booklet. Sculpture 3: Iron turntable with attached super 8 projector. The super 8 film was projected on an old TV placed on a stepladder. The booklet was placed on top of the TV. Visitors could stand behind the TV and look through the booklet under the light above or on the other side to watch the film.

MERZEDES STURM-LIE (ARTIST AND DAUGHTER) TALKING WITH ÅSA LIE. BRUSSELS, JANUARY 2025

Merzedes Sturm-Lie: Was this your first official collaboration as a duo?

Åsa Lie: Yes, looking back in the mid 90’s we felt it had started in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Arbete (Work) became our first duo-piece that lead to an exhibition.

MSL: What role did the concept of ‘work’ play in the exhibition?

ÅL: The exhibition was open on weekdays from nine to five. We worked as consultants guiding visitors through the installation, inviting them to reflect on and discuss, the role of work in our lives, money and mathematical concepts such as geometry and algebra.

MSL: And how was it connected to Prague?

ÅL: We arrived on a Monday and left on a Friday, hoping to experience everyday ‘normal’ life, and started criss-crossing Prague during working hours with busses and trams, taking them to their end stops, often in the outskirts and back again through the city. Some routes were repeated. Now and then we got off at a stop. So, either photographing in speed through the windows or just hanging out. The sky in the super8 was filmed on a tram stop. The movement and noise of the rides (creaking, slamming doors and an alarm-like siren before the doors opened and closed) contrasted with the nearly silent emptiness outside. There were buildings and streets and wires, but hardly any people. Pretty desolate. We stayed in a suburb apartment bedroom where everyone got up around 5-6 in the morning. The supermarket opened at 7, closing with empty shelves at 9. The streets were busy for a little while until everyone disappeared into a factory, office or school. After a couple of expensive days with legal Czechoslovak korunas, we surrendered to the black market money changers. Suddenly we felt a bit ‘rich’ and surprised by what we could afford. We needed to spend everything before leaving, as it was illegal to take their currency out of the country. We embarked on a train to Berlin a few days later, loaded with cakes and beer, films and big packs of photo paper just to mention a few things.. The photo paper was later used for the booklet images.

MSL: What was the relationship between you and Jadran, especially in terms of your East–West backgrounds?

ÅL: The topic of our childhood and youth came up since we grew up with the Cold War, but on different 'sides'. We often discussed and compared our experiences. Jadran grew up in Jugoslavia, while I grew up in Egypt, Venezuela and a few European countries. That background influenced our work with Arbete. Duality. Opposites. For example negative vs positive. And in the booklet one must leaf through from the back to the front.

I find it interesting, that shortly after this exhibition, the destruction of the Berlin wall started on 9 November 1989, followed by the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. A strange coincidence, as we had only ‘just’ been to Prague, photographing and recording.

ARBETE 3: BOOKLET TEXT

Architecture in its greatness, poetics, heroism, power, displayed via negatives. The past was treated historically correct. We observed the city of Prague in speed, fragmentarily and subjectively through a window. In this situation each image was fixed. A minimal materialisation of this vision has been advocated. The positive photo-image has not been produced, the projection is not used for viewing and the negatives are not made into photo-objects. The booklet itself is quiet. The consequence of the paper quality and format is dematerialisation of the image and simultaneous materialisation of the booklet. The film’s idea is the eye’s minimum possibility to perceive, air and a geometrical timeline. 20.08.1989 Åsa Lie Jadran Sturm