“LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project

“LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project

A cultural exchange project between female Swedish and Chinese craftsmen in different arts forms, e.g. silversmith, textile designer, designer. The craftsmen would like to express the theme “LOVE PROTECTION” (the name of the project) by using several creative methods, compare the language of love in China and in Sweden, focus on love as a positive force in a sexualized society.
Openning:20:00,11 Aug 2007

Promoter:Anneli Linder,Anna Mellergård
Sponsor:TCG Nordica gallery
Organizers:Luo Fei,Liu Jun,Liu Lifen
Artists:
China:Do You,Wang Han,Sha Sha,Shi Zhijie,Chen Lingjie
Sweden:Anneli Linder,Christina Nyström Jansson,Elisabeth Johansson,Linda Thörnblad,Else Månsson
Add:TCG Nordica No.101 Xi Ba Lu,Loft Kunming,Yunnan Kunming,China
Tel:+86-00871-4114692

1. Background
Background and reason for the exchange?
Love is often described from “the reverse” in media, culture and society by means of exploitation, utilization (both sexually and financially), superficiality, illness and destructiveness. With this in mind, the participants of this exchange project would like to focus on “the right side” of love.
During the fall of 2006, there was an exhibition about HIV/AIDS at the Sino-Scandinavian culture centre TCG Nordica in Kunming, China. “LOVE PROTECTION” is a follow-up of the HIV/AIDS project, in which the artists would like to use creative methods as a preventive measure on the theme of love.
In the project “LOVE PROTECTION”, ten female craftsmen in different ages and from two different cultural backgrounds (China and Sweden) want to express love as play, warmth, depth, pulse, persistent power of life etc.
Both China and Sweden have a long and genuine tradition of craftsmanship. These female craftsmen would like to create an exhibition where love is not degenerated by using e.g. textile design and design an exhibition about “the good love”.

Why have this exchanges pairs been chosen? Why are they representatives for the group/organization they represent?
Several of these female craftsmen have many years of experience of craftsmanship and design in their home countries, where they are established in the area of e.g. silversmith and textile design. These women also have a common desire to describe a different kind of love contrary to the one which is often shown in media and society – the kind of love that seeks its own, grabs, exploits and which mainly is connected with youth, outward appearance and capacity.

2. Common planning
Initiative, discussions about purpose and contents etc. “ who have planned and how?
The planning of the project “LOVE PROTECTION” is mutual, where the Chinese participants are in charge of the program in China (part 1) and the Swedish group is in charge of the program in Sweden (part 2).
One of the participants in the Swedish group, Anneli Linder, is leaving for Kunming in November 2006, to meet with the Chinese group and plan the common work with the exhibitions which will be presented both at TCG Nordica, China and in Sweden (at Örebro konsthall and at Svensk Form on Skeppsholmen, Stockholm).
Since it takes a lot of time to produce craftsmanship, the two groups will start working separately in their home countries. During this time they will keep in touch by using e-mail.
Thereafter, the participants will meet for two weeks in China (spring 2007) and two weeks in Sweden (autumn 2007), when they will continue the creative process, which will result in two exhibitions and some workshops both in China and in Sweden.
When the participants of the project will meet in China, the first days will be used to make a more detailed program with a common schedule, which will come out of the suggestions that the two groups have presented.

3. Purpose of the exchange
The purpose of the “LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project is that the participants would try to find a common creative language that would describe how it will be possible to “protect love”.
When women from two different cultural backgrounds meet, different experiences, conceptions and images about love will emerge in an exciting way, where the big variation of ages also will contribute to a variety of expressions in different stages of life. The common desire of the female craftsmen is to describe a different kind of love than the one which we are often exposed to in society, culture and media.