Shiva Anoushirvani
anoushirvani.shiva@gmail.com
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svenska

Edge City Talk Show

Performance, 2012. Photography by Martin Hultén

The work consists of a performance where a TV show recording is taking place. The TV-team are standing on a stage in shades of pink and grey in the middle of an open space between the mosque and the fountain in the square of Husby. The team shoots two 20-minute programs directed by Anoushirvani. The audience is standing in a semi-circle in front of the stage, listening closely. Some passersby stop to see what is going on.

The theme of the program is based on the idea of the desk and the office as a symbol for work, power and prosperity, but also intimacy and the private sphere. “What desk are you sitting at?” is the program's existential question.

In this performance Anoushirvani is focusing on the informal boundaries between the suburbs of Husby and neighbouring Kista. In the art project entitled “Edge City Talk Show” she continued her work on experiences of how bodies in the public domain are regulated and defined by invisible boundaries.

The boundary between Kista and Husby is not just an economic and social boundary. It is also a boundary between work and private life, production and reproduction. Husby gets placed in the “home” category while Kista means “work”. These positions are also gendered and categorized by age. Ester Barinaga’s ethnographic study of the area shows how the division that exists there is further reinforced by media reporting. On one side of the divide there are children, old people and women. The people are immigrants and they are occupied with looking after the elderly and children. On the other side are employed, middle-aged men. The inhabitants are “nomads” and they belong to an international class. In Husby people are isolated from Sweden while in Kista they have contact with the world around them. This division, created by the media, creates a sort of identity for the people living in the neighbourhood even though it may not correspond with facts. 

In her work, Anoushirvani investigates these contrasts and boundaries by creating a sort of hybrid out of the two suburbs. By moving office equipment from Kista to the public spaces of Husby and by using jargon from a typical talk show she places a familiar image in the “wrong” place, thus clarifying the contrasts by means of a concrete situation. Local celebrities are invited to discuss their views about work, “networking” and their own desks. The talk show hostess speaks to her guests in Swedish with an American accent, discussing issues like how to dress for work, which colours one chooses for the office and why one wants to sit on the upper floors of a skyscraper. Everything is “brilliant”.

Text by Karin Hansson, artist, curator and PHD student at The Royal Institute of Art and Department for Computer and Systems Science (DSV), Kista/Stockholm.

Credits: Actor (talkshow host): Emma Weidenhielm
Talkshow guests: Local office workers Åke Lindström, Arash Sofla.
Local activist: Inga Harnesk
Musician: Jonas KarlénVinjett Music by The golden Paraply
Director of camera: Tommy Boije
Camera operators: Sarah Gampel, Tommy Boije and Tobias Sjöberg.

About the “Edge City” as a term: www.thoughtco.com

Edge City Talk Show

Performance, 2012. Fotografi av Martin Hultén

Edge City Talk Show består av en performance där en tv-inspelning äger rum. TV-teamet står på en scen i skiftande rosa och grå nyanser mitt på en öppen plats mellan moskén och fontänen på torget i stadsdelen Husby. Teamet spelar in två 20 minuter långa program regisserade av Anoushirvani. Publiken sitter i en halvcirkel framför scenen och lyssnar intensivt. Några förbipasserande stannar för att se vad som pågår.

Temat för TV-programmet bygger på idén om skrivbordet och kontorsmiljön som en symbol för arbete, makt och välstånd, men också för intimitet och privat sfär. “Vilket skrivbord sitter du vid?” – är programmets existentiella fråga.

Text av Karin Hansson i dialog med Shiva Anoushirvani. Texten är delvis ett utdrag ur publikation om utställningen Performing the Common samt en artikel i Tidskrift för genusvetenskap med fokus på konstnärlig forskning:

Många underhållningsprogram fokuserar på privatsfären, det är boendet, maten, utseendet och kärleken som avhandlas i tv-soffornas intima rum. På scenen i Edge City Talk Show, placerar Anoushirvani den moderna skrivbordsmiljön i strålkastarljuset och låter gästerna diskutera sina olika arbetsstrategier och små vanor. Gästerna består av lokala kändisar som blir intervjuade av programledaren vars kraftiga amerikanska brytning symboliserar den internationella företagsmiljö som Kista står för, medierad genom en amerikansk kultursfär.

Shiva Anoushirvani fokuserade på de informella gränserna mellan orterna Husby och närbelägna Kista och hur kroppar i det offentliga rummet regleras och definieras av osynliga gränser. Husby, en stadsdel som signifierar privatsfär och reproduktivt arbete, till skillnad från den närbelägna kontorsstaden Kista. I “Edge City” reproduceras de starka kontraster och den tudelning som syns i den mediala bilden av orterna.

Om begreppet “Edge City”: https://www.thoughtco.com/edge-city-1435778