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What a fantastic idea! Wonder how people would react.

Peter Johansson and Barbro Westling often challenge and provoke the observer. Several of their productions inspire the audience to question traditional norms, values and identities. Their have different backgrounds: Peter is known to many as a provocative artist who often has used humour as an instrument in his artistic productions, and Barbro has her experience from the academic world with a focus on dance and literature. The products that evolve from their partnership can take all thinkable forms and be placed in several different cultural fields like dance, theatre, film, books and art.

In 2004 the duo participated in an exhibition in Malmö Museum that depicts the historic roots and the contemporary state of the Nazi movement in the Swedish region Skåne. Barbro and Peter´s contribution to the exhibition was an installation whose aim was to show the Nazis´ beliefs of their right to look down and persecute other people. The installation was a dark tunnel with tv screens portraying faces that scream out their hate to the spectators.
Since 2005 the artists have performed the Bergman Horror Show. By now the doll´s house drama has been played in several Swedish and European cities. It is based on personal conceptions of some of the films made by the celebrated filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. The performance is acted out on the stage of a miniature theatre, like the one that Alexander plays with in the film Fanny and Alexander, where they investigate subjects like death, melancholy and drama. With humour and irony they explore some essentials of Bergman´s films that have helped to define certain aspects of the Swedish national identity.
In 2006 Barbro and Peter were involved in the Norwegian project “Omveg”. With a great curiosity they looked into new ways to perceive all the amazing things that tourists can experience along the roads in Norway. In the exhibition they use different multimedia illusions to guide the observer in a landscape where the detour leads to unexpected and beautiful viewpoints where nature and imagination unite.

Barbro and Peter often set the light on the unexpected. Hopefully the artistic duo will continue to surprise us with more fantastic ideas that can make us question the reality or just make us smile.

Author: Robin Sjöblom

Bio

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Barbro Westling and Peter Johansson
Collaborated since 2004.
Peter Johansson is born in Sälen Sweden 1964 and Barbro Westling is born in Gothenburg Sweden in 1956.They lives and works in Malmö Sweden.

Peter Johansson
Art Education:
2001-02 IASPIS Artist in Residence, ACME, London Great Britain
2001-02 IASPIS Artist in Residence, ACME, London Great Britain
1987-88 Hovedskous College of Sculpture Studies, Gothenburg
1986-87 The National College of Crafts and Design (Konstfack), Stockholm
1983-85 Sörängens Peoples College (Sörängens folkhögskola), Nässjö

Barbro Westling
Education:
1978 Master of Arts in Comparative Literature, Theatre Studies and English Literature, University of Gothenburg

Work:
1990- Member of the Committee of Nyt Skandinavisk Forsogsteater, Copenhagen
1987 -Member of the editorial staff at Aftonbladet, theatre-, dance- and literature critic
1987-96 Teacher at the Drama-Theatre-Film Department, University of Lund,
1988-93 Fiction/Drama Reader at the SVT, Malmö

Lecturer, collaborator, writer for theatre magazines, programs, presentations, panel debates etc

Upcoming exhibitions for Peter Johansson and Barbro Westling:
"To the Left of the Rising Sun" (part of the Manchester International festival) Manchester England.
Skärets Konsthall.
Clarion Hotel restaurant, Stockholm.
"Art in Public Space", BWA Gallery, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Intervention at Kulturen, Lund (together with Marianne Lindberg de Geer)
Intervention at the Photografic Department, Malmö Museer
"Endlos", Göteborgs konstmuseum (catalogue)
"Peter Johansson/Barbro Westling" Växjö konsthall
"SEAS" Europe tour 2008
"Peter Johansson/Barbro Westling" Kristianstads konsthall
"SPUNK - Museet för naiv konst" Initiators, producers and curators for a new museum on naive art, built outside Nässjö, in collaboration with Professor Eva Londos, Jönköpings Länsmuseum.