PepART / 1997-1999

PepART was the name of a collaboration between artist/designer Linda Kanter and me. We went to paintingschool together in 1995-1998 and I guess we got tired of painting at approximately the same time. PepART’s first work was a relational piece called Relationactivity #1&#2 which was performed in Gothenburg in 1997. Relationactivity #1 took place at a café (it was an exhibition in publicspace). Linda Kanter and I played a selfinvented game called FAMILJÄR/FAMILIAR with the audience. FAMILIAR should be played by two participants who do not know eachother from before. The playingboard is round and there are questions based on three categories; Background, Relations and Outlook on life. Questions like: What’s your name? and How old are you? or What do you do for a living? are excluded/forbidden and exchanged with questions about God, Wether you call your parents Mum and Dad? and Shall we pull fingers? There is no possibility to win this game. During the day at the café we played the game with 26 people. We did not take their name or number, the only memories we had was some polaroid pictures when shaking hands with them and the knollege about the participants background, relations and outlook on life. Since we wanted to meet these people again, we made some research and after about one month we invited 20 people that we actually found to – Relationactivity #2. 15 people showed up, this time at a Olof Palme’s square. Linda and I served coffee and we all played FAMILIAR.

Another piece that PepART made was the Recycling flag. Recycling flags were placed on every public dustbin along the street Avenyn in Gothenburg. The flag came with an explanation in three langueges that said: “When throwing a can in the dustbin: please erect flag to avoid unnecessary rummaging.”