The video installation Where She is at along with a presentation of Make it happen – on tour are Johanna Billing’s contributions at Bildmuseet this summer. Billing is part of what is known as the alternative art scene and one half of Make it happen, a record company and also a platform for composing and testing different strands of artistic expression.
Her video installation Where She is at depicts hesitation and courage over making decisions, daring to take another step or … not. A young woman stands right at the top of a diving tower, she hesitates but walks to the very edge. She wavers in her decision to take this daring leap, to jump straight out into Nature. The video is also about a young person’s demands and opportunities for their own choices, about the social pressure from society on the individual. What is expected and what isn’t? The work was recorded at the Ingierstrand seaside resort just outside of Oslo, Norway.
On a monitor, the video Make it happen – on tour is also being shown. This video is about a bus tour in Scandinavia involving musicians and artists. The work is an unmistakable example of a spirit of the times and of a form that many young artists today are using. Different forms of expression are mixed and presented either outside of or parallel to institutions’ often more traditional forms of encounters with the work of art. A means of emphasising the flow, exploring social processes and, not least of all, taking matters into your own hands.
Visitors to Bildmuseet can see Johanna Billing’s work of art Where She is at, and also, above all, discover a working method, a means of approaching an artistic experience for which Johanna Billing is an obvious representative. A representative for a liberating “do-it-yourself together with others” mentality as well as a means of keeping control of ones work.
