MMP: Pia Rönicke

Bredäng is part of the so-called “Million Dwelling Project” from the middle 60s and early 70s, in which identical residential buildings in prefabricated elements were built and placed in the landscape – in this case, a lovely green and hilly area near Lake Mälaren. Pia Rönicke together with Åsa Sonjasdotter has interviewed a number of Bredäng’s residents and asked them questions such as “what do you think of your housing area?”; “what sort of influence do you have over your immediate surroundings?” Further she has questioned the inhabitants about their views on: “the quality of their local democracy?” “Is there an opportunity to affect local politicians, or must other channels be exploited in order to be heard?” “Do their opinions matter or do they feel powerless?”

In this investigative project, the ideals of city planners and architects chafe against the everyday use of the area, thirty years after its inauguration. The project consists of an audio segment with interviews by Åsa Sonjasdotter and two films. The films hold a sample of material from 16 mm film, archive material from Sweden’s Television and computer animation. These films will be shown as an installation in the Kulturhusets’s Läsesalong and can also be loaned from Bredäng’s Public Library. The interviews will be presented as an audio installation at Bredäng’s Public Library and may be loaned in CD form from the Kulturhusets´s Läsesalong.

In her work, Pia Rönicke often starts in a built up and designed reality. She “samples”, she borrows forms and images from widely different contexts – from IKEA advertisements, Bauhaus architecture, interior design magazines to illuminated books and cartoon series. These are combined in, for instance, atmospheric videos and posters. Somewhere Out There, which was part of the exhibition, What If: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design at Moderna Museet in the summer of 2000, is a video in which the artist tries to capture the spirit of a time, or an epoch, from that period in Scandinavia when people tried to refine the art of social engineering in order to create a modern society. Rönicke’s work is a collage in which the 60s and that decade’s optimism and romanticism about outer space encounter our own present. Images of prefabricated dwellings and stylish interiors of flats are combined with, for example, imaginative spaceships. Photo models from fashion magazines crop up here and there in parallel with Gerhard Schröder’s picture from an election poster. Popular culture and exclusive culture are mixed together in order to describe a space in which architecture, culture and personal history coexist, in which dreams and physical limitations also coexist.

Pia Rönicke was born in 1974 in Roskilde. She lives and works in Copenhagen and Los Angeles. Her Moderna Museet Project is a result of cooperation with the National Arts Council. She is currently a recipient of an IASPIS stipend (September-December, 2001).

Kulturhuset’s Läsesalong 6.12. 2001 – 10.02. 2002
Bredäng’s Public Library 6.12. 2001 – 28.12 2001