Artist: Cecilia Parsberg
Exhibition dates: September 21–October 18, 2023
Location: Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65
Curated by: Tinni Ernsjöö Rappe and an exhibition based on a doctoral thesis in fine art. It consists of two artworks on five different screens.
Cecilia Parsberg at Handels was based on Parsberg’s doctoral thesis in fine art. The exhibition centered on two artworks shown across five screens and explored the overarching theme of power and powerlessness.
The works were installed throughout SSE: in the main entrance hall, the north corridor on the ground floor, the atrium, and the small room in the staircase behind the auditorium.
The Chorus of Begging and The Chorus of Giving (2014)
This two-screen installation was shown in SSE’s main entrance hall. It forms part of Parsberg’s doctoral thesis in fine art, How do you become a successful beggar in Sweden? An inquiry into the images of begging and giving 2011 to 2016, completed at Lund University.
People who usually beg took part in the Begging Choir, while people who usually give to those who beg participated in the Giving Choir. Because giving and receiving money is often a non-verbal transaction, both choirs sing without words. Through individual and collective voices, they express the feelings that arise between people who beg and people who give. The choirs stood approximately five metres apart during filming.
What Images does the Begging face? (2014)
Shown on the small screen in the north corridor, this video work was created with the help of an interpreter. Fifteen people who were begging took part in individual interviews about giving, how they were treated on Swedish streets, and their own image of giving.
Each participant was informed about the project before the interview and agreed to take part. The work brings their perspectives into view and asks how people who beg understand the encounters, images and expectations surrounding giving.
What Images does the Giving face? (2014)
This video is based on two qualitative group interviews conducted by a professional market researcher. Eight respondents took part in two-hour discussions and reflected on what a person who begs might do to receive more money, including questions of behaviour and clothing.
Participants were informed about the project and consented to being filmed with two cameras. By turning the focus toward those who give, the work examines the assumptions, expectations and images that shape acts of giving.
Don't be stupid (1994)
Shown on two screens—in the atrium and in the small room in the staircase behind the auditorium—Don't be stupid examines the relationship between power and powerlessness.
Created in 1994, the work was also included in Borderland, a film programme presented by Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art and the SSE Art Initiative to celebrate ten years of contemporary art at SSE.
The screening is part of the filmprogram Borderland - a collaboration between Magasin III and SSE Art Initiative.
Cecilia Parsberg holds a PhD in Fine Arts and lives and works in Stockholm. She is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts at Karlstad University, where her role includes research.
Her contextually situated, relational and performative practice is politically informed and often explores how images separate and connect people, and how aesthetics relates to ethics. Her work has been exhibited at Tate in London and at Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum and Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art in Stockholm.
The political happens every day. That is the premise for my artistic practice. I perceive, with all of my senses, a physical and mental distance between those who kneel on the street and passers-by, between begging and giving people. Here I invite the spectator into that “gap”. A dialogue, or a lack of dialogue is going on between the two choruses, between voices, between facial expressions, and between bodies. The installation The Chorus of Begging and The Chorus of Giving is an embodiment of this experiential space. A reflection of a situation that many experience every day on our streets. It is my hope that art can make it possible to see such gaps – which seem to be difficult to talk about – as spaces for action; and thus contribute to the possibility of political acts in and about these spaces.
On October 4, 2023, the SSE Art Initiative hosted an art talk with Cecilia Parsberg and curator Tinni Ernsjöö Rappe. The talk took place at the Stockholm School of Economics and offered an opportunity to discuss the works and the questions at the centre of the exhibition.
