By Jannie Søgaard
Throughout her working life, artist and graphic designer Åse Eg Jørgensen has been active in various artistic communities. She is currently active in three – one of which dates back to 1981. She says she has not really thought about why she has structured and prioritized her artistic work in this way. Not until now, when BILLEDKUNSTNEREN has invited himself to visit her workshop at Islands Brygge to talk to her about the power of collaboration.
"I actually think it has had an impact that I come from a home where there was a lot of playing and singing. I have recently committed myself to a new collaboration where music plays a role, and through that I am discovering how much I actually have with me from my childhood."
"The community thing may have grown out of having experienced early on how it is possible to do something concrete physically together with others, which expands the scope. It's just not something I've been conscious of," she says.
A self-organized community provides freedom
Åse Eg Jørgensen entered her first community in the world of art right after she finished high school. She and a group of friends with artistic ambitions decided to start an art magazine. Pist Protta they named it, and today, 45 years later, it is still published twice a year, with support from the Danish Arts Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, with herself and two of her friends from back then responsible for everything from idea development to publication.
"When we had made issue 10, it first became really fun because we now had a kind of corpus of work that could continue to expand. It was also the work with the magazine that made me apply for my education, because we lacked some knowledge of writing. My admission to the School of Applied Arts (now the Danish School of Design ed.) gave me the opportunity to use the school's workshops when we made the magazine. Among other things, there was a silk-screen workshop where we printed covers," she says.
The communities at the School of Applied Arts did not mean much to Åse Eg Jørgensen. Because those were some busy years during her studies. She had children along the way and at the same time had plenty of community around Pist Protta, which required a lot of work. She also never considered, unlike some of her fellow students, applying to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
"No, I never felt like it. And I didn't need the community at the Academy of Fine Arts, because I already had a community that was interesting and, moreover, self-organized. And that's something that has always appealed to me when it comes to working communities. I like that together you are able to organize things that go beyond what is actually strictly necessary right now," she says.
Åse Eg Jørgensen in the workshop at Islands Brygge. Photo: Jannie Søgaard.
“I didn't need the community at the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts, because I already had a community that was interesting, and which was also self-organized (…) In these kinds of communities, there is freedom to set both goals and frameworks.”
She also points out that there is a special freedom in self-organized communities. It allows everyone in the community to influence the framework and rules that are a prerequisite for a community to function.
“You always have to take a position on some things when you join an unestablished system. In many other communities, you support something that others have started. But in the self-organized communities that I like to be in, there is freedom to help set both goals and frameworks,” says Åse Eg Jørgensen.
She uses the word co-creation to describe the process behind Pist Protta. A process where the three editors work together to create a structure that can lead to an expression that she is absolutely convinced that neither she nor the other two would have come up with if they had worked alone.
Community without lowest common denominator
On the large, black table in the middle of Åse Eg Jørgensen's workshop lie piles of books, magazines and papers. Also several editions of Pist Protta. She takes the latest edition in her hand and shows an example of what collaboration with artists outside the established editorial team can look like.
"The latest Pist Protta is about 'shit', and that's why we invited the artist Ulla Hvejsel to make a photo novella, because she has been working with shit for many years. She received funding from the Danish Arts Foundation for the work, and as you can see here, the photo novella has now become a work that primarily exists in this context," she says, holding up the magazine.
"It's both fun and fantastic. That way we can help some of those we invite in get something printed in a magazine that they can go out and show off. That's part of what we can do with the magazine. It becomes a space where we can invite people in to collaborate, participate or contribute. In that way, Pist Protta becomes both a social context and an exhibition space," says Åse Eg Jørgensen.
Pist Protta's visit to Guttormsgaard's Archive, Blaker Meieri, Norway. Photo: István Virág / KUNSTDOK
The exhibition collective is a professional space
In addition to Pist Protta, the 67-year-old artist is involved in two other professional communities. One is called LOCAL and is an exhibition collective established as an association and with two exhibition spaces in Copenhagen. The association brings together 16 artists who meet regularly and hold meetings with fixed agendas. Among other things, future exhibitions and possible joint events are agreed upon, and they also update each other on their individual projects.
LOCAL Exhibition spaces are not only intended for artists to exhibit there. They are also made available so that members who, for example, need extra floor space for a few days can use it for work purposes. Overall, LOCAL a community of artists that is more focused on the artists themselves rather than on an audience.
"Many professions need a professional forum, and you can also think like that." LOCAL"It is often required that artistic professionalism is directed towards an audience that is not itself an artist, and this can sometimes lead to a form of lowest common denominator. Not because there is anything wrong with the audience, but it must also be legal to work collegially," says Åse Eg Jørgensen.
Therefore, LOKALE is also a forum where members show their work to each other, have dinners together or have a conversation with those who are invited in from outside. Åse Eg Jørgensen herself was invited into the network five years ago, and as with other artistic communities she is or has been a part of, there were certain factors that determined her desire to join.
"It means a lot to me that people have an interest in social issues, and then there should be something at stake for everyone. What is given, and what you give yourself, comes back and should feel like something extra that you get. It's like two fields, right? And then there's a warm substance in between, which is a plus substance," she explains.
Åse Eg Jørgensen is very aware of what she gets out of getting involved in professional communities.
"It is largely the undefined, social aspect behind the communities that is the outcome. The mutual understanding of each other and interest in each other's work," she says.
From a financial perspective, Åse Eg Jørgensen's commitment to professional communities cannot be converted into money. However, she has no doubt that her many years of work with Pist Protta, for example, has been a good reference and has given rise to several graphic work assignments over the years. She also believes that the definition of work is too narrow, because often work cannot be defined solely as that which provides financial return here and now.
“Of course, you have to be able to pay your bills, but your work can easily extend much further than that,” she says.
Photo: Jannie Søgaard
Sympathy for each other is crucial
There is another factor that plays a significant role for Åse Eg Jørgensen when she engages in a working community. It is about sympathy – the desire to spend time with those with whom one enters into a community. It must always be present, and it is also very much so in the newest of her artistic communities, she says. It is called H.Å.M. – after the initials of the names of the three women who make up the group. The community was created when the three women met in a self-organized choir, and one of them invited the other two to collaborate on an exhibition she was commissioned to create at Brandts in Odense.
“We started by meeting to set rules and boundaries so that we could create a working space together. But even though the first meetings were basically about which direction we wanted to go, one of the best things we got out of it, when I think about it, was the trust and safe space we created. It quickly became a space where we could say anything to each other without fear of how it would be received and a space where we didn't have to perform in relation to each other, but together,” she says.
When decisions are made in H.Å.M., they are made, as they are in all the professional communities that Åse Eg Jørgensen is a member of, in plenary. This means that there is an equal relationship between everyone, and this is crucial to her desire to be there.
"I think it's important to be able to put your own ego aside for the good of the work if you want to succeed in making art together. That doesn't mean there should never be disagreement, because it can't be avoided. But I don't thrive in places where disagreement turns into conflict, so I'd rather not be involved. I'm much more in favor of us talking our way to consensus," she says.
As Åse Eg Jørgensen sits there talking about her involvement in – and joy at – artistic communities, it almost sounds as if one door after another has just opened for her, without her having to make any effort. She also acknowledges that she sometimes experiences being invited into communities without having directly sought them out herself.
“I am of the opinion that by joining communities, I am making an effort that in some cases leads to new communities. But there is certainly no doubt that friendships and acquaintances are a pivotal point in life. My own first professional community actually arose as an extension of a friendship,” she says.
No topics are too fine for the magazine Pist Protta. Here is issue 98, a so-called “shit issue”, which is about shit as artistic material and shit as an object of artistic activity. The magazine can be purchased at Spacepoetry.dk. The editorial team consists of: Jesper Fabricius, Jesper Rasmussen and Åse Eg Jørgensen.