Saturday, December 7, 4 pm
The On Practices artist talks are held in English. 
Free entrance.

On Practices is a series of artist talks and meetings that welcome the audience to discover in-depth the practices of several important voices for today’s Swedish art scene, while framing each conversation within topics such as: the agency of artists in the art world, self promotion and self representation as a continuous process of unpaid work for artists, and artistic practices as processes mediated between art organisations, regional actors and the artists.

On December 7, we are happy to host Malmö-based artist Maria Norrman, delving into the long time spans and multiple layers of her artistic process, which often intertwines costume making, drag or gender expression-related performances, with topics that overlap historical characters or events with mediated personal experience – a sort of personal experience that seems almost enchanted, traveling through time and multiple embodiments.  

At Skånes konstförening Maria Norrman’s artist talk will center around her ongoing project about her relation to French dance artist Jane Avril (1868-1943) who was a friend and model of Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901.) Norrman was immediately struck by the image of Avril, and felt like she was a friend, or a past life person. The project was started in 2004 with a performance where Norrman attempted to invoke Avril by performing a cancan-dance at an open stage event in high school.

Norrman will present more recent attempts at getting close to or invoking Avril, such as visiting places in Paris dressed in replicas of Avril’s clothing or filming herself while trying to recreate Avril’s dances from descriptions. While the project will continue to be ongoing, this presentation will attempt to sum up what’s been done so far. 

Artist’s bio:
Maria Norrman mainly works with video and photography, in combination with performance and costume making. Norrman often uses herself and different characters in her work. The works explore the meeting between hers and other people’s fantasies and topics such as war history, gender and sexuality. Her method often consists of different types of role play where body, clothing and identities are central starting points. Norrman was born in 1987 and received her MFA from Malmö Art Academy in 2013.

Curated by Simona Dumitriu and Tawanda Appiah, On Practices concludes almost two years of programming with hope in another future, one that can be built upon long-lasting collaborations, on finding common threads and on doing the constant work of questioning ourselves within the ever-changing emotional skyline of the social environments in which we dwell. 

The public talks are preceded by round table dialogues hosted by Malmö Konsthall and supported by Malmö Stad as exploratory meetings with the purpose of networking, exchanging ideas and work methods. 

Skånes konstförening’s public program and exhibitions are presented with support from Region Skåne, Malmö Stad, Swedish Arts Council and ABF.