Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair is just a month away. During the four days on 12–15 April we will turn our new venue Slaughterhouse 5 into a creative hub of live events and performances. We bring back the popular public seminar programme of TALKS and for the first time introduce the Supermarket Performance Art Centre with an extended range of on- and off-stage performances by Swedish and international performance artists.

Here are some of the highlights of the performance programme:

The artist-run collective Istanbul Performance Art, features a line-up of established and emerging artists, including Gustaf Broms, Mustafa Boğa and Roi Vaara who will be broadcasting with his endlessly swinging microphone. We will also see a performance by the group’s founder Pınar Derin Gençer – ‘You Are Not Lost You Are Here’, depicting the human need for belonging and security after being born and cut off from the umbilical cord.

Vili Nissinen’s ‘Art Must Be Fabulous – Artist Must be Fabulous’ is performed by the artist's stage persona, Anita Bangs. She is an eccentric character who sees the world through queer lenses, and with a punk twist restages the classic performances of Marina Abramovic, transforming her work from serious to burlesque.

‘Icarustic’ is a performance piece by Hungarian artist István Kovács that questions the nature of desire and the inevitability of failure. 

The Swedish performance duo Knölkollektivet will search the uncomfortable aspects of human communication and relationships on the stage and around the whole venue.

‘We are already standing in the ruins’ is a short performance by Johan Sandås marking the tenth anniversary of the downfall of western industrial civilisation – the 2008 financial crisis. Masks and artifacts are used to raise important questions about where the humanity is heading. What would happen if instead of desperately trying to save the ruins, we put our resources to finding other solutions?

As every year, Supermarket TALKS introduces a series of topics relevant for the contemporary art sector. Connecting the feminist point of view to this year's theme of LEGACY, the Canadian artist Erica Mendritzki brings a performative lecture ‘Let me talk to you man two man’ that looks back to the patriarchal history of art. The lecture will be followed by a conversation between Mendritzki and Magdalena Blom, a Stockholm-based artist and director of feminist Gallery Majkens. They will discuss feminist movements in Sweden and Canada and strategies to address gender disparity in the art world.

Iaspis in collaboration with the Forum for Living History and AIM Network present a seminar on the political situation in Central Europe. Four artist representatives of the Visegrád (V4) countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – will discuss the cultural and political landscape in the light of recent populistic tendencies across Europe and as influencing the artist-run art sector.

In recent years, artists have been commissioned according to cultural policies to produce art for public spaces in a more extensive nature than before. As part of the TALKS programme Konstfrämjandet will show examples of public art initiatives and urban planning with focus on the development of the artists’ role in public projects, and possible constraints such as instrumentalisation and trivialisation of artistic practices.

Also returning to Supermarket this year are the ‘Art shots’, a series of presentations in a ‘pecha kucha’ format. One speaker, ten images, and only ten minutes to deliver the presentation, you will hear, see and discuss the best on offer from the contemporary artist-run projects. For this year we have secured the participation of Photoport (SK), Artist-Run Alliance (IL), Lateral Art Space (RO), Storm & Drunk (ES), 14+ Artists (TZ) and Galerie SAW Gallery (CA).

This and much more you can look forward to at Supermarket 2018. The full programme for TALKS and Performance will be published on our website www.supermarketartfair.com by the end of March. We hope to see you there!