Interview with Lisa Nyberg and Johanna Gustavsson from The Malmö Free University for Women (MFK)

by Jeuno JE Kim

 

Malmö Free University for Women (MFK) is a gender separatist art and educational space by and for persons who identify as women. It started in Malmö, Sweden in August 2006 by artists Lisa Nyberg and Johanna Gustavsson. It's an ongoing public art project aiming to create a place where art, politics and feminism are brought together, opened and recombined. We arrange weekly activities and courses that are determined by proposals from interested participants. Our growing archive contains books, DVDs, posters, magazines and materials donated to us by our participants. We wish to question and develop the concept of art, knowledge and cultural production, and in doing so, contribute to the development of feminist movement and thought. The purpose of the University is to create a space for creative, intellectual, political dialogue and action. To re-think and re-frame the notion of history as it is taught in schools and universities and to find "new" or "other" forms of storytelling, knowledge and learning. Our events, workshops, talks and readings are applied experiments to actively investigate how "alternative" knowledge production can be conducted as a way to break hierarchical structures between different kinds of knowledge. Our aim is also to keep an intersectional perspective on all we do and to find new ways of bridging theory and practice.

 

 

Jeuno JE KIM: How did Malmö Free University for Women (MFK) start?

Johanna Gustavsson: We met five years ago when we were still in art academies. I was in school in Göteborg and Lisa in Malmö. When I finished school, I moved to Malmö and we started to hangout. We had remembered each other’s practices because we shared an interest in dealing with feminism and its related issues. We had in common a feminist practice and to develop this we sought each other out.

Jeuno JE KIM: Can you speak more about what you mean by “feminist practice”?

Lisa Nyberg and Johanna Gustavsson (MFK): Well, we mean it basically in terms of being practicing feminists in the art world. It was the need to talk to another person about how to combine the two – feminism and art – and how to survive the art world that was telling us to separate them. Somehow the feminist practice always had to be translated into a symbolic, metaphorical level and we felt that it was too much of a compromise to work only on that level.

Jeuno JE KIM: So you were faced with this attitude towards a certain practice while you were still in the academy. How are the art programs structured and what were the strategies you came up with to do what you wanted?

MFK: Most art academies in Sweden have a curriculum that is studio based and very individualistic. The closer it got to graduation one is pushed into having a very clear profile as an artist and to think individualistically.

Johanna Gustavsson: I was told that while I was out in the streets my fellow male students were spending valuable time in their studios making to develop their carriers. This kind of remark is made with good intentions but not with a lot of thought or knowledge. I basically stopped talking to everyone at the academy and started building a network of my own. I just removed myself.

Lisa Nyberg: I think that is a common strategy among students. I was told so many times to spend more time in the studio in order to work through ideas and to think more aesthetically. They missed the point that I was more interested to work in relation with other people, involving participants that were outside of the art world. But the atmosphere within the academies fostered a conversation to remain within the art world, and discouraged venturing outside of it.

MFK: So we met after we graduated and through our dialogues we came to formulate this space we have now. We had a discussion about Kvinnohuset in Copenhagen and the lack of such a space in Malmö. We talked about the factional aspect of feminist movement in Malmö and how there wasn’t any physical place one could go to. We wanted a space where a continued discussion within the feminist movement could occur.

We had participated in different feminist groups and activities, and our individual networks were different, so we talked about bringing the different groups together. Perhaps we were a bit naïve to think that art could be a neutral room – neutral space. We thought maybe art could provide a clean slate to facilitate dialogue.

We met women in Malmö who had specific knowledge about various topics they could share with others. And the ability to find these people is a skill we acquired in school because we were taught to be a good networker, which is basically about knowing how to talk to others and building a community. The lack of community during our years at the academy, forced me to develop these strategies of building one’s own community. Also, we both felt that feminism on a practical level were not discussed at all within our immediate art context, so we needed to find it elsewhere.

Jeuno JE KIM: What do you mean exactly when you say “practical” because this seems to be something that is important for both of you – to emphasize applicability or the practice of something.

Johanna Gustavsson: We feel this is important, especially in the context of the art world because political discussions often remain as discussions and rarely translate into taking action and application into a real context. As an artist one should ask questions but never provide any answers, because that is too naïve and didactic. Often things are relegated to nihilistic or relativistic level and therefore, no statements are made in the end.

Jeuno JE KIM: Do you think that educational framework is the most appropriate for combining different causes and agendas? Is that why you chose to call yourself as a university?

MFK: We talked a lot about bringing together activists, academics, and artists because where you are at determines how you deal with the issues. For activists it could be good to see the art world and all the possibilities of that language, and for the academics, it could be good to see how it is on an activist level, dealing with societal problems/situations. Often the critique in feminism is that there is a discrepancy between theory and practice, so we wanted to try and bridge that gap, albeit on a modest scale, within our project and space.

Jeuno JE KIM: You’ve been around for nearly a year now, what is your mid-term review of the program?

MFK: Well we have had plenty of suggestions and realized almost all of them, there have been about two events every week. People are starting to know of us and contact us with their ideas because they understand our concept of creating a space where ideas are realized. It has become a place for people to meet and discuss.

About our aim to combine art, theory and activism, there is a lot of good will but we still need time for the gap between theory and practice to be bridged in our program. There is some discussion between the activists and the academics – but the art world is the most resistant and skeptical. Perhaps what is necessary is for artists to realize the potential in finding other means of sustainability – to understand that post-graduation, one doesn’t need to rely only on stipends and the usual routes for professionalizing artists, but to find new contexts for different ways of working and thinking.

Of course it is important to know how to write grants for funding, but it becomes problematic when one starts to think and make work that is catered to fulfilling the request/expectations of these grant committees.

Jeuno JE KIM: So did MFK start when it received funding or did it begin before?

MFK: We had the idea and made two separate plans, one with and the other without funding. And to start off we didn’t have any funding so our first project was a Poster project, where we chose various important women in history, and made simple black and white posters about these women which we spread throughout the city. Our first lectures were held in borrowed spaces like a gallery, Johanna’s living room and in the park.

Jeuno JE KIM: How do you align yourself with the words “women” “university” that frame your space?

 

 

MFK: It was not a big deal to call ourselves a university. We are a school and it was ok to call it by what it is. We wanted to reclaim the name because it is a place where people can learn, teach and do research. We define “women” as those that identify with the term.

Jeuno JE KIM: What do you teach and what do you learn? How do you choose what is a good project and what needs to be taught? Do you take every initiative/suggestion and if not, how do you decide?

MFK: In the beginning we had a “start up” meeting where people could propose what they wanted to learn and what they wanted to teach. We got a lot of suggestions. So now it is a mixture between people’s suggestions and some of our own ideas along with what is happening politically, and what people are talking about. It is also more organic in that we try to see what suggestions or discussions arise repeatedly throughout the meetings and to revisit them. We also try to juxtapose different interests and questions, seeing whether that can create different positions and to expand on what people have proposed in order to get a broader view of the subject. We were also focused on getting started and to let people know that this space exists here. It was also important to have a variety of events that catered to different interests. We’ve operated on the policy of saying “yes”. Of course, we haven’t been able to actualize all the suggestions, but we have been archiving everything and it is a matter of time before we can review them again, finding the right context for the projects to take place.

Until now, our planning has been driven by a sense of urgency, where we’ve been focused on “doing something now – and immediately” – but the more we learn about how, who and where the interests are, we can try to have more in depth discussions.

Jeuno JE KIM: Is this an artistic project? And if you consider this to be art, how do you define it as art?

MFK: The project as a whole is an art project because we are two artists who have initiated it and this is our artistic practice. However, for people who come to our classes and events, it doesn’t matter whether this is art or not. It has been important for us to stay in the art world and for the art world to recognize this as art so that we can develop the concept of art.

The work of an artist is essentially about ideas and actualizing them. The production or the process, whether it is organizing the finances or networking relies on the self-esteem of the artist to be able to do whatever she/he wants. Using the privileges of artistic licenses is an important fact to remember and to utilize for our purposes as artists. Women have always developed the concept of art but the credits are attributed to men. For example, women were the first to explore performance art, but as a form, it was only noticed when men decided to do this. It is important to remember what is due to us and to claim this history. We don’t wish to compromise ourselves to the demands of the art world. We want to use the resources within the art world to carry out our political purpose – and not vice versa.

Jeuno JE KIM: If you could teach a seminar in an art academy, what kind of seminar do you think should/could be taught. What would you propose as critique to the administration/institution?

Johanna Gustavsson: We don’t relate so much to art institutions. We don’t see ourselves as a counterpart to the art academy.

Jeuno JE KIM: But if you call yourselves a university then there seems to imply a framework that addresses the need for self-education and a focus on process of learning. Your project seems to be a space where one could further an awareness about what’s going on politically, socially, etc.

I think the “learning space” at MFK and what that entails is interesting because the line between teaching and being taught is blurred. People make suggestions to “teach” a class or hold an event, but what often happens in these “classes” is a broader exchange of ideas. Without being forced into a prescribed group learning situation, it becomes an experiential consumption and production of knowledge.

Often when artists are invited to teach it is the individual artist that is invited and rarely groups. What would the groups say or give to the students that differ from a single teacher – a single artist? It might be interesting for students to experience a collaborative group or collaborative learning events that become “a teacher” because they can experience a plurality of voices and different opinions, which might help them to develop their own criteria for making decisions.

Jeuno JE KIM: Finally, What is your usual advice to students?

MFK: Don’t be good students.

Jeuno JE KIM: Anything more?

Lisa Nyberg: It’s a difficult thing to break – the habit of being a good student -- because one is taught to be good students. We say don’t rely on the academies, but find your own sources and communities outside of the academic context.

For more info visit: www.mfkuniversitet.blogspot.com

Jeuno JE KIM is an artist based in Malmö. She is part of HOMEWORK.