I was very proud to be invited by gallery Candyland in Stockholm to exhibit my work ”The Departments of Anna Sörenson.” I am very happy that so many could make it to the show! Thank you Fredrik Streffiert, who helped installing all the video works, audio and also took all these amazing photos!  Thank you Daniel Rydh and Conrad Boyd, for helping out installing and assisting the show. Also thanks to Eva-Maira, Maja and Anna-Mikaela who helped out finding the right equipment! But the biggest thanks goes to Candyland’s Andreas Ribbung and Jean Polteau who made everything possible and Jean for inviting me and promoting the show with this kind words:

We believe in power. Everyday we face power structures and we view them as natural boundaries of reality. We realize that some of us have more power than others, that power is something a lucky few get to have temporarily but that power also can be captured. In any case we expect power to be tied to responsibility and duty, that power would naturally subordinate the human needs and sensibilities. But is it that really how power operates?

The main topic, as I see it, in Anna Sörenson’s conceptual art piece “The Departments” is power. Since 2012 has she staged her performance “Your Application is Pending” (in Stockholm, Brussels, Miami) where she invites the audience to take part and with their contribution they themselves lay the ground for the logic of the procedure and the following analysis. To exercise power needs a clear set of roles and therefore constitutes collaboration.

The advantage in staging the mechanism of power in the context of an art exhibition is that no one will be hurt. But Anna Sörenson’s work shreds light on how something that looks like a ordinary situation truly engage us in a power play, where every one who takes part is ordering themselves in the power structure, whether he or she wants it or not.

Come and get a taste of power at Candyland the 14th of November!

Jean Ploteau