ISBN: 978-3-9823166-6-6
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Joy Forum
Edited by Sveinung Unneland
with Rosa Marie Frang, Ane Hjort Guttu, Brandon LaBelle, Ola Innsett, Stephan Dillemuth, Arne Skaug Olsen, Eamon O’Kane , Skade Henriksen, Susanna Antonsson , Marie Vallestad, Sara Bo Lindberg, Laus Østergaard, Mathijs van Geest, Gard Frantzsen and Matias Grøttum.
Joy Forum (2018-2023) began with the establishment of a small artist run exhibition space, located – physically and symbolically – in the heart of Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. It was built from recycled materials in the reception area of the school, conceived as a vehicle to explore and react to new institutional frameworks that emerged when moving into a brand-new building, and in the merger of the former, autonomous art school (KHiB) with the University.
Since its inception, Joy Forum’s activities have been organized by a small collective of artists, established at the beginning of the project, most of whom shared a connection to the school, as either current or former students, academics, or administrative staff.
This book doesn't represent a complete account of Joy Forum’s activities, nor the complex institutional and political context that Joy Forum set out to explore and interrogate. Nevertheless, it aims to provide an account of these activities that is as complete and compelling as possible. While acknowledging the unavoidable limitations of such documentation, this book is valuable at least as a kind of fragmentary collection of notes which all connect to the journey that Joy Forum has embarked on.
Some of these quite confrontational, others more in dialogue with history. Importantly, several of them are characterized by their being based on personal experiences. I think of them as records from within a large and complex event sphere, as memories that speak of a specific artistic collaborative project in a specific institution, during a transitional period. A process described by artist and writer Arne Skaug Olsen as an institutional transition from “poor and politically radical to neoliberal and reformed.”
