WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THE PROJECT AND WHO IS THE TARGET GROUP?

SQUID was launched because organisers thought this project emphasised a lack of representation of the specific kind of content. They felt a need to contribute with an expanded perspective on what knowledge related to the cultural field could be about. Finally they felt an urge to create their own context where they could act freely in different directions within the field mentioned above.

WHAT DOES THE PROJECT INCLUDE?

SQUID facilitates a space for what organisers have come to call the "parallel" knowledge that emerges from an investigative, creative process. It could involve research performed for a project or an interest that enriches one's work. The contributions are thus not necessarily limited to a discussion of art per se, but rather focus on the local experiences derived from diverse individual or collective practices in the cultural field. The basic idea of SQUID is to offer a site where these kind of texts can be made accessible to a wider audience.

SQUID continuously invites artists, musicians, writers, curators, philosophers and other practitioners in the cultural field to write in relation to the engagement and driving forces that run through, or parallel, to their own work.

It offers interviews, reportage, essays, research as well as scripts, prose and poetry. The subjects are as diverse as the participants. For example, you can read about disappearing homing pigeons, black magic in white media, the University of the Forest in Brazil and much more.

One of several approaches to introduce audiences to the SQUID project is to arrange public events. It is an important way to display the project since it offers a possibility to meet people face to face. Organisers have carried out these events in cooperation with institutions, galleries and other cultural platforms. They actively search for new situations and contexts to work within. The public events are a way to create a physical "interface" - a situation where experiences, knowledge and reflections can be generously shared across genre borders.

So, the tangible outputs are an online archive of texts and public events. Soft outputs are the networks organisers have established - which consists of cultural producers, art and educational organisations and other projects that deal with similar subjects and strategies – and the knowledge, insights and readings they have spread around the globe.

HOW IS THE PROJECT FINANCED?

Main financial support 2005 (starting up): The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, project grant

Various travel grants for specific study trips and international exchange: Sleipnir, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art (NIFCA), Helge Ax:son Johnson Stiftelse.

Main financial support 2008: Kulturkontakt Nord / Nordic Culture Point

Project managers work was mostly unpaid.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROJECT ENCOUNTERS DIFFICULTIES?

"A concrete problem we encountered was connected to financials. Our aim is to present the contributions at SQUID in the original language, and translated to English, so to finance the translations is something we are struggling to develop methods for. Also another aim is to present the texts as sound file, and again, to solve this is very much connected to financial matters." (Katja Aglert, Janna Holmstedt, Martijn van Berkum)

WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU OFFER RELATING TO THIS PROJECT?

"The question needs to be addressed in relation to a more specific context or dialogue partner. There are so many aspects to be considered. But to mention one insight: the need to be 'physical' when using the Internet as a distribution-tool. We have recently started a close collaboration with the blog Point of view, which also meant sharing experiences and sharpening our methods concerning the intersections between text archive-blog-knowledge production-community-sharing-publishing-networking-meaning production." (Katja Aglert, Janna Holmstedt, Martijn van Berkum)

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

"One of the ambitions we have is to run the project for a long time, and by this create an archive that shows examples of certain content through different periods and decades in history. In the near future we plan to arrange two events, one in Sweden and one in Norway, and we will continue inviting people to contribute with texts to the SQUID archive." (Katja Aglert, Janna Holmstedt, Martijn van Berkum)

WHY IS COOPERATION IMPORTANT?

"To work collaboratively naturally 'filters' every decision and every idea through a discussion, which usually makes it stronger, and the collaboration also creates more opportunities since everyone adds to the project in different ways. The collaboration creates good dynamics and we also get much more done. Cross-cultural practices create the possibility to produce a common ground, or even discursive places to get together and develop new insights that can counter the cultural conflicts that are so much dividing contemporary societies today." (Katja Aglert, Janna Holmstedt, Martijn van Berkum)