Local Minima is an ongoing collective investigation into the current crises in democracy in Europe. It specifically looks at the underlying psychological traits that create the breeding ground for extreme politics to surge in Europe. A group of visual artists, psychiatrists, lawyers and neuroscientists have been working with the problematics since 2015. Below you find the invitation to a collective event that the group staged in Stockholm in 2017.
An interdisciplinary journey in and around Stockholm/Huddinge on May 20, 2017 (images here).
This is a unique invitation to a magical and rare event. You are welcome to join an international group of artists and researchers as they explore the mathematical and psychological concept of Local Minima. The exploration takes the shape of a bus tour through off-sites of Flemingsberg and Huddinge, south of Stockholm. It is part research, part game, part performance that will take you to unfamiliar locations and to discover unknown places. As the journey progresses through various landscapes, you are invited to interact with your fellow passengers, artistic works and situations. Along the route, on the bus and during a number of stop-overs, you will attend lectures and performances. Odd occurrences will appear that gives you the opportunity to explore aspects of human habits, through oscillations between routine and metastable states.
On this collective odyssey you will actively participate in the realisation of each step of the event. Both you ate the projects will create different bridges between ideas, places, times and disciplines that normally cannot dialogue. You will alone and together reflect on how personal impasses, fears, mental blockages, being stuck or frustrated relate to larger movements in society and how they can gradually grow into political movements or viral phenomena that define our every day.
Together we will travel by bus from central Stockholm, make a number of stops in Flemingsberg. You will see one of Swedens largest public art works; Gert Marcus’ colourful facades in Grantorp, that is rarely the stage for artistic performances and an assembly of site-specific works by international contemporary artists. We tour will end at Fullersta Gård which is an art centre in Huddinge and where the participants can eat, drink and converse together in the lush garden that surrounds it.
Local Minima includes contributions by Predrag Petrovic, Alicja Rogalska, Fabien Guillermont, Per Huttner, Mounira al Solh and Dolphins Inc.. The participants will meet you when you arrive at the journey’s destination and you will have the opportunity to discuss your experiences with them and your fellow travellers.
Local Minimum in Mathematics is the least value that locates within a set of points that may or may not be a global minimum and it is not the lowest value in the entire set. It can also be termed as “Relative Minimum”. In psychology Local Minimum refers to a state where the sufferer needs energy to exit from. The longer and deeper this state becomes, the more energy is needed to exit it. The project investigates the possibility that local minima can be suffered by larger groups, or even entire populations.
When: 20 May; 13.00-18.00 (approximate times)
Where: Pick up and drop off in central Stockholm . The tour will go to Flemingsberg and to Fullersta Gård in central Huddinge (Fullersta Gårdsväg 18). Details TBA.
How: Everyone is invited to join and it is free of charge. Further details will be announced. You can already book your seat on the bus or ask questions by contacting Susanne Ewerlöf at Fullersta Gård: susanne.ewerlof (at) gmail.com
The project is a collaboration with Karolinska institutet, Fullersta Gård and supported by Kulturbryggan.
