STATUS – The Role of the Artist in the Changing of Society

STATUS is an exchange project that brings together artists and cultural workers with a common goal to analyze the conditions of artistic practice and give visibility to the people who conduct it in today’s world. Moreover, it encourages them to see their social and political potential in initiating change.

The project STATUS started in 2018 with gathering artist and cultural workers from Belarus and Sweden in order to find relevant and shared topics on the importance and capacity of artists in making change in society by community’s interests.

The STATUS project has been created by the joint coordination of Swedish and Belarusian partners: Konstepidemin in Gothenburg and gallery KX in Brest. Collaborations and participations in the project are exclusive for non-governmental organisations and freelance cultural workers.

STATUS I 2018-20 was a collective research project which the research conducted were predominantly Belarusian and Swedish. The work of the artistic research groups, developed different topics under one general framework. In this process of the STATUS project the research groups created collaborative work like  Hidden Life, Heritagization, and (non)work.

The outcome of STATUS I was presented in 2020 as exhibitions and a book Artistic Practice and Social Change, observations from Sweden and Belarus.

STATUS II 2020-22 had a problematic start on the autumn of 2020 with the postelection protest and the repression of cultural workers in Belarus. The project turned to be at Residency program within the international program at Konstepidemin. Through an open call 6 belarusian artist could be offered a 2 month stay and during the residency time get a Swedish companion, an artist matched up in personal expression. Later a residency program for 2 performance collaborations was set up, joining small companies with similar spheres of interest.

The STATUS online platform statusproject.net is a tool that makes produced knowledge visible and available to the broader public and professionals. The content of the platform is a collection of contributions from projects participants and a place for analytics, interviews, event reports, and inputs of other fellow professionals who work within the field and also research topics raised within STATUS in their independent practice.