On what grounds are the objects in an exhibition generally selected? Nationalmuseum and Tensta Konsthall discuss this issue in the exhibition Jihani Kalapour.

Who selects the objects shown in exhibitions at museums and art galleries? What type of aesthetics do the exhibition producers choose to present to the visitors, and what determines this? In the Year of Cultural Diversity 2006, a collaboration took place between the Center for Women in Tensta-Hjulsta, Nationalmuseum and Tensta Konsthall, resulting in an exhibition that discusses the grounds of selection. Jihani Kalapour is Kurdish for World Culture Heritage.

For two years, Altoum Alimoardi, Niger Dara, Sara Isaksson-From, Åsa Jungnelius, Zobida Nadi Sharegh and Nasrin Rashid have been working at Tensta Konsthall and Nationalmuseum in a craft-based process focusing on personal meetings and relationships. Because of the language barriers, aesthetics have become the essential means of communication throughout these workshops. The team has consciously focused on aesthetics as a common language. The meetings took different forms, but they were all based on enabling the individual to express him/herself through subjectivity and creativity.

The team’s first meeting with Nationalmuseum indicated that it’s an unfamiliar place to many people, but that the works of art still have the power to communicate with everyone. By selecting objects from the collections and placing them in a new context at Tensta Konsthall — an experimental, suburban institution — the objects get a new meaning. The selections were made by the team members in an intuitive and personal way, on the basis of their own experience and preferences.

The fifty or so chosen objects from Nationalmuseum make up a diverse selection of craft and visual art, and together, they tell us a story. The works resulting from the team’s regular meetings are also shown, along with the borrowed objects from Nationalmuseum. The Jihani Kalapour project has developed through meetings between different individuals, cultures and objects of art. Nationalmuseum manages a world cultural heritage, and when the selection is made by individuals with a different background than the museum curator, the objects can be experienced in a new way, by a new audience.

Jihani Kalapour is shown at Tensta Konsthall. A continuation of the project at Nationalmuseum has been projected for next year.

Curators: Altoum Alimoardi, Niger Dara, Micael Ernstell, Sara Isaksson-From, Åsa Jungnelius, Konst2 (Rodrigo Mallea Lira, Ylva Ogland and Jelena Rundqvist), Zobida Nadi Sharegh, Nasrin Rashid, and Karin Sidén.

Sara Teleman on Jihani Kalapour
“Jihani Kalapour is an exhibition based on subjective selection. But, you might say—all exhibitions are based on subjective selections, intellectual and aesthetical. Exactly, and that’s what this exhibition is about. It’s about the fact that all exhibitions, collections, museums and art galleries are based on someone’s choice. And that choosing also means excluding. It is, of course, all about power.”

The fact that a few individuals’ choices govern the selections shown at the museums is rarely discussed. In Jihani Kalapour, parts of the collections of Nationalmuseum have been made available to other individuals than the prevalent, in an attempt to emphasize the personal choice and explore the consequences. The people who have selected the objects from Nationalmuseum to the exhibition at Tensta Konsthall are Sara Isaksson-From, Åsa Jungnelius, Altoum Alimoardi, Nasrin Rashid, Niger Dara, Zobida Nadi Sharegh, Karin Sidén and Micael Ernstell.

“Each selection tells us something about the person who selected. About their history and what they carry with them,” says Åsa Jungnelius. At the exhibition, there is no information about who has chosen what. Why not? “To avoid exoticism,” explains Sara Isaksson-From. “As soon as you start talking about these things, you risk drawing a line between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and we want to avoid that. We are individuals who have made personal choices, and those choices are what interest us—not dividing the group by nationality or level of education. Instead, the spectators will have to face their own prejudices. They might find themselves thinking ’that thing must have been picked out by so-and-so’.”

Nasrin Rashid thinks that the objects at Nationalmuseum bear the stamp of the Swedish society, but also that there are similar objects in her native country. “It’s important to me to discover that there are things in my country that I have in common with the Swedes,” she says.

“Displaying old objects in a modern surrounding like Tensta Konsthall is unusual. The opposite, showing contemporary art and craft in older settings, is more common,” explains Karin Sidén. So, what does it mean that the objects are shown at Tensta Konsthall? Micael Ernstell and Karin Sidén think that objects can express different things in different surroundings and contexts. Zobida Nadi Sharegh thinks that it doesn’t matter where you see the objects: “But perhaps people don’t know that Nationalmuseum exists, and even if they do know, there’s a distance, both geographically, emotionally and economically. A lot of people can’t even afford to get a travel card to go there.”

According to Zobida Nadi Sharegh, the location of the art space evidently matters. As for myself, I’m sitting on the train on my way out to Tensta, wearing a loden coat, thinking how obvious it must be that I’m on my way to the art gallery. Does there have to be such a gigantic threshold—both ways? Perhaps this unique project, where Nationalmuseum contributes by lending objects to start a dialogue with a whole new audience, can lead to more visitors both at Nationalmuseum and Tensta Konsthall. Or—is it time to relocate parts of the collections? We already have Tensta Konsthall and Stockholms Stadsteater Skärholmen. When will we get Nationalmuseum Bredäng?

Åsa Jungnelius and Sara Isaksson-From speak Swedish and Zobida Nadi Sharegh speaks Farsi, while Nasrin Rashid and Altoum Alimoardi speak Kurdish. Instead of using words, they have communicated through handicraft. Parts of this aesthetic vocabulary is shown in the treasure cave at the exhibition. In projects like Jihani Kalapour you constantly have to fight against your own ‘good will’. Also, there is always the concern that what you’re doing will be perceived as ‘politically correct’. I think you should take it for what it is; an attempt to meet beyond the cultural markers.

To draw attention to the hierarchy in the art world, everyone in the work group has the same title on opening invitation card: ‘curator’. The curator makes the selection. What happens when you give that power to someone unexpected?
Of course, the project included a lot more than this. You can read about the background in ”12 Tuesdays and Nice Things” at www.tenstakonsthall.se. What isn’t said out loud there, you’ll have to read between the lines. It’s about much more than personal choice, hierarchies and taste education. But it can’t all be included in the catalogue. After all, there are limits!