PALS is a performance art platform based at Fylkingen in Stockholm.
Fylkingen is a venue and artists' society. Since its establishment in the 1930s, Fylkingen has been committed to experimental work in the contemporary performing arts. The organisation is made up of over 250 member artists from many disciplines who use the venue to develop and present new work.
The idea of linking is central to our work and therefore forms the festival title itself – PALS: Performance Art Links. The festival project is realized based on partnerships between artists, organizations, institutions and projects. PALS, acting as a platform for performance art, has realized two big festivalsand a number of different projects in other formats.
PALS commenced its activities in May 2011 with a performance event at Fylkingen in collaboration with Live Action Gothenburg. We showed three artists from China, Germany and the US.
In April 2012 we realized the first edition of PALS festival. The festival showed 23 artists from 13 different countries and the same number of art students from the scandinavian countries and Poland along with Fylkingen members. Durnig the intense progrtam a wide spectrum of performance art works were shown both in public space, at Sergels Torg, as well as in Fylkingen, the main venue of the festival. A three day performance art workshop preceeded the public program and showed to be one of the festivals great successes by uniting an educational element with creative exchange of theoretical and practical expertise in and around performance art. The festival as a whole recieved a a very positive response from the audience as well as from artists, students and partners.
During 2013 PALS did a thematic project in cooperation with New Art Contact in Helsinki: the exchange project: “Fake Finns and Wannabe Swedes”. The project took place in five different places: Tegen2 gallery, Fylkingen and Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm, Galleriy Augusta in Helsinki and at Sverigefinska Folkhögskolan in Haparanda/Tornio during the period of february-june 2013.
Fake Finns and Wannabe Swedes! presented 22 performance artists from Sweden and Finland with origins outside of these two countries. The fact that the project touched a nerve in contemporary dicourse around immigration and identity manifested itself by a large audience attending the events and by the heat and intensity of discussions held on and off stage.
In April 2014 we realized the second edition of PALS festival.
32 artists from all over the world participated in a three day event that take place in and around Fylkingen and the public place Slussen. A workshop with Swedish and international students preceeded the festival. The students participated at equal terms in the festival program along with the other artists.
Which had a number of positive effects on the festival climate.
We who run PALS are both organisers and performance artists:
Erik Wijkström www.erikwijkstrom.net
During his career as an artist Erik Wijkström has built annoying machines, megalomanic sculptures of mastodont proportions, conceived man-to-truck transaltion devices, developed tools for randomized artistic production, programmed boring computer games, posed as a model for the menswear chain "Dressman", erected portrable observation towers, laid out curtains of smoke from suitcases, acted as an escape artist, investigated gravity, dug out personal islands, made waffles, camped out throgh performance art festivals and poppoed popcorn in industrial quantities.
Erik Wijkström holds a Master of fine arts degree from the Royal institute of art in Stockholm 2006. Lives and works in Stockholm.
Lovisa Johansson www.wolart.se www.lovisajohansson.se
Lovisa Johansson is based in Stockholm, Sweden. She has been working and exhibiting as an interdisciplinary artist since 1996, with the emphasis increasingly on performance art. Existential themes recur – loneliness, love, birth, death. She is interested in the interdependence of human beings and how she, as artist, can widen the borders of normality and make the mental space grow. Her work also has a formally structured side, where matter in action elaborates rhythmical patterns.
Lovisa Johanssons most important collaborator is the artist Wenche Tankred, with whom she forms WOL - a visual, playful, experimental performance duo.
WOL works with sound and images, the human absurdity, sensibility and beauty.
Their ideas emerge from an interaction with different objects, most of which provide some type of sound. The aim is to create living images with multiple meanings, allowing the audience to contribute with their own interpretation.WOL has been presenting their work in Sweden and abroad since 2007.
Hiroko Tsuchimoto www.hirokotsuchimoto.info
Hiroko Tsuchimoto is a visual/performance artist, living in Sweden since 2008. She began her career at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and went on to study at Konstfack and Kungl.Konsthögskolan (Royal Institute of Arts) in Stockholm.
Since moving to Europe, she has worked with ethnography as a subject matter. In her art she shifts between grand narratives and every day stories, highlighting the cultural construction of personal identity. She tells stories about otherness and the will to belong, based on her experiences as an Asian immigrant. This position gives her a bird’s eye view on both the Swedish - and Japanese society. Through her works she makes gaps in our normality, for self-reflection and external observations. Recent works focus on subject matter such as borders, myths and cultural mapping – exploring Swedish & Japanese folklore, set in a present day context. She often includes a feminist perspective, problematizing traditional gender roles and Japanese politics. Her goal is to make art that is easy on both critical eyes, and the disinterested gaze - creating an aesthetic experience, with a deeper meaning underneath.
Denis Romanovki www.romanovski.se
Denis Romanovskiis an artist and organizer based in Göteborg; he graduated both Belarus State Academy of Arts in Minsk in 2001 and Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2006. Since 1999 he focuses mostly on performance art, presenting his works in various countries worldwide. As an organizer he has been running performance festival Navinki in Minsk (1999-2008) and during recent years - Performance Art Links festival in Stockholm. His artist practice often extends to and merges with research, experimental forms and technologies. Working with major themes like Auditory Navigation, Phantom Expression, Random Argumentation, Kara(oke)Tribune, Futureview he produced series of works in several formats and methods.
Alice Máselníková www.alicemaselnikova.com, www.eurstrat.eu
Alice is artist and curator of Moravian origin currently based in Stockholm, Sweden. She has several years' experience in art coordinating, curating and programme management. Candidate for MA Curating Art including Management and Law at Stockholm University. The most recent addition to PALS team, Alice joined as an intern but has been secretly plotting to infiltrate the team for a flow of future collaborations.
In her artistic practice Alice uses the human body as a starting point and develops it across media, ranging from sculpture and drawing, interactive elements, textual based work, poetry and performance. She has a very firm faith in fun and spontaneity both in art and in life.
Alice is editor for Arts & Culture for the European Strategist, an online platform with focus on European culture, philosophy, politics and international relations.