In 2018 the Swedish government distributed the information brochure Om krisen eller kriget kommer (If Crisis or War Comes) to every household in Sweden. The purpose of the brochure was to inform and prepare the Swedish citizens in case of a national crisis would occur. Inside it you can read about how to act, where you find information and what you should have at home if you can’t leave the house for instance. There is a check list of things that could be lifesaving, such as tins of food, bottled water, woollen clothes, batteries et cetera. Inspired by this checklist, the Swedish artist Charlotta Hammar began to photograph the things in her house in the beginning of 2019 to investigate if she and her family had the proper equipment if crisis came (they did not). The project grew bigger and turned into a full-scale inventory of everything in her household which is ongoing and probably never ending with the title Inventering/Inventory. Besides the purpose of documenting all the things in one household in order to find lifesaving objects, the work posts questions on control, search for meaning and the role of consumption in people’s lives.
The poster project Important Public Announcement is consisting of photographs from Inventering/Inventory combined with text fragments from the brochure If Crisis or War Comes. The layout is referring to the information posters during first and second world war, trying to gather and calm the citizens. There are ten posters with different messages and photos where text and image not always have a clear connection. In the old information posters from wartime, the sender was the government and had the purpose to not just inform the people but also to give the impression of strong leadership and that they had the situation under control, to avoid panic and disorder. In the posters by Charlotta Hammar, the sender is not revealed, and the text fragments are cut out from its origin context, what happens then?
The project was initially exhibited in 2019 at Galleri Format in Malmö, Sweden, just a couple of months before the global pandemic reached Sweden and the civilisation started to shut down. The posters suddenly became prophetic. Two years later, still in pandemic mode, the Polish curator and art historian Maja Kolarz presented the project to Cracow Art Week 2021 and it was accepted. Kolarz and Hammar decided to run the scattered poster exhibition in Gothenburg and Cracow simultaneously. During four weeks, the posters could be seen in shops and restaurants all around both Cracow and Gothenburg (the part in Cracow was founded by the city of Cracow). It was possible to follow the project on Instagram, where stories were posted everyday about each location where you could find the posters. The project won the laboratory section during Cracow Art Week 2021.
EXHIBITION LOCATIONS // PARTICIPANTS 13.6-4.7 2021:
CRACOW:
GALERIA BB
PETITE FLEUR
EMIL KRĘCI LODY
KAFFE BAGERI STOCKHOLM
HUMMUS AMAMAMUSI
PIERWSZY STOPIEŃ
NIE PO DRODZE TATTOO
PAPIERNICZENI
ANNA GREGORY
MO61 PERFUME LAB
STUDIO PUNCA
COFFEE GARDEN
LUTHIER WORKSHOP
GOTHENBURG:
RUM FÖR PAPPER
VIKTORS KAFFE
ANDRA LÅNGGATANS SKIVHANDEL
RESTAURANG SOLROSEN
SPIKE BREWERY
CAFÉ BÅTEBACKEN
MARIAPLANS BOKHANDEL
importantpublicannouncement.com 