Resisting the International Defence Industry
Resisting the International Defence Industry
RIDI focuses on the politics created by the defence industry and the issues that it causes in civil society. The show is an outcome of material and performative research that started in 2022. It has produced a video performance, a series of photographs and time responsive installation presented in Open Space.
RIDI, Resisting of International Defence Industry, is a project of two Finnish artists living in Southern Sweden, Gothenburg. This project looks into the problematic effects of the defence industry's ability to affect politics at large and specifically within civil society. The artists come to the project from their backgrounds of resistance. Kaisa Luukkonen is a pacifist who opposed the USA invasion of Iraq in 2003. Peter Rosvik has worked within and around the Punk movement and holds solid anti-state views. From these backgrounds and resting in the conflict of these positions, Luukkonen and Rosvik have created a selection of artworks that use the material of isomalt sugar.
Isomalt sugar enables the artist, Luukkonen and Rosvik, to take a carnevalistic approach to the power of the defence industry. The artists have created a selection of colourful candy guns. The seduction, of arms as machines of defence, control and violence, is present in the beauty of the art objects. The defence industry wants us to give into this seduction. The representatives of the industry want us to think that the only way to peace is to have this industry which, by creating a threat of destruction, is then protecting us. At the same time defence industry works hard to create smoke screens between its products and the personal suffering they cause. Luukkonen and Rosvik have yet to find a final solution for a world without a defence industry. Instead, their work suggests an ongoing process of creating a less violent world. They also keep herding on change during the RIDI Open Space as in their preparatory work for the show. The artist will do it by working with the time-reflective installation, creating audience interactions and having workshops.
