Andreas Engman
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mail: andreas.engman@agitera.com
cell: +46(0)704155739
Studio / Public platform: Harald Stakegatan 2, 415 15 GBG
Artist and former chef Andreas Engman practices institutional critique at the intersection of performance, political philosophy, and the politics of food. His works are associative, open-ended assemblages that meet the public in installations, performances, and soundscapes. He is interested in how metaphor can speculatively reframe a subject and open new ways of interpreting it. Through processes of cross-pollination, he intermingles distinct fields of study to disrupt conventions and generate new ways of knowing across disciplines.
Engman’s recent work approaches institutions as bodies that “feed” through their various “admission” procedures (eating habits). When deciding which unknown elements to incorporate into the self, one might suggest that human bodies and institutions share the same contradictory feelings of neophobia (fear of the unknown) and neophilia (the need for change). The ingestion of unfamiliar elements can transform a body or institution from within, possessing or depossessing it of itself. As a body, the institution must therefore decide whether the unknown should be admitted and absorbed, or rejected and expelled.
Continuing his interest in the fabric of institutions—their structures, attitudes, and ecologies—he initiated the artist-run platform Temporary Stabilisations with artist Annie Johansson. Temporary Stabilisations can be seen as another vehicle and strategy for exploring expanded practices tied to ”the institutional.” The project aims to establish a space for gaining further insights into the complex ecologies of institutions. Located in a former convenience store in Gamlestan, Gothenburg, Sweden, the space serves as a studio and a public, transdisciplinary platform for contemporary art and related practices.︎