Get your gift when you buy your ticket!
Get a ticket to Nordiskt Forum Malmö 2014 and get an autographed Beata Boucht poster!
There are a few posters left. When you buy your ticket, you are welcome to pick up your poster at the Nordiskt Forum office in Stockholm or at the Nordiskt Forum in Malmö in June 12-15. First come first served! Note that they may run out before the forum kicks off!
Give away one or more entry tickets to four lovely and sunny summer days filled with music, dance, knowledge, seminars, art and theatre experiences, inspiration from world-renowned leaders and debaters, the latest in gender research, stand-up comedy, poetry slam, experience from different gender equality projects, encounters with thousands of feminists from around the world, substantial training and competency development and, last but not least, the opportunity to be involved and make an impact!
Offer! Get an exclusive Nordic Forum Poster by Beata Boucht with the ticket, signed by the illustrator, limited edition.
What are the ideas behind the poster?
– The look of a feminist poster can vary greatly. I have worked with political illustrations my entire career, questioned and examined how we see form from a gender perspective, what we interpret as “political”, how we assess and evaluate a particular aesthetic based on our experiences and values. So it is a great honour for me to be asked to make Nordiskt Forum’s special poster. An especially important aspect of my art has been to elevate an aesthetic that is usually undervalued. I always start from an intersectional and norm-critical perspective and avoid using stereotypes. Cold winds have blown over Sweden in the past few years and this fall has been stormier than usual. It is easy to lose faith in the possibility of a fair society that we are all striving for in our daily work, it is easy to feel a huge impotence. In the Nordiskt Forum poster, I wanted instead to express the energy and determination I myself feel about these issues, I wanted to pep and inspire people in the ongoing struggle for sisterhood, I wanted to convey the enormous power that arises when we unite and stand up against nationalism, racism, homophobia and sexism. I wanted to express the physical part of the struggle, the collective, that there are many of us who stand together and discuss, act, collaborate and organise ourselves towards a common goal. Visually, I want the poster to be a multi-coloured-over the top-more is more-extra everything-maximalist energy boost for your wall at home; I want us to put “light and fresh” up on the shelf and to work for a multi-faceted, colourful, anti-fascist society where there is space for everyone.
What are the key feminist issues today?
– Right now, it feels more relevant than ever to discuss intersectionality, how women are being beaten and the fascist and misogynistic tendencies that we openly allow in society today. The Women’s Rights Movement has worked with these issues for a long time, but now that explicit racism has become run-of-the-mill in our country, I want and demand that politicians take off their blinders and act. We must all open our eyes and see how these tendencies go hand in hand with the oppression of several groups in the society, such as women and LGBT persons, and see that that we cannot just fight one oppression at a time, everything is connected. So, as always: solidarity, courage and sisterhood, especially in preparation for the election year 2014. The parties that don’t take feminism seriously do not belong in the Swedish parliament today. And I haven’t even touched on the international perspective and what we need to do there, sending a thought in solidarity at least – even if only as a symbol of our imprisoned activists in Russia and of all the undocumented people in Sweden.
About Beata Boucht
Since Beata Boucht graduated from Konstfack (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) in 2007, she has distributed her unique illustrations both in Sweden and internationally. She works with a large array of clients and projects – for example, fashion companies in China, The New Yorker in the US, Finnish study materials and, last but not least, Nordiskt Forum. Regardless of the assignment, Beata’s critical eye is there to shine a light on the age in which we live, on our taste and our prejudices and to offer us other perspectives with her sublime and evocative illustration. Besides illustration, Beata actively works with gender issues – as previous editor of Bang magazine and by giving lectures on form and gender at Konstfack and other design schools.