Using nothing else than raw, swedish will-power, a crummy looking Caravan will in early June of 2006 have been transformed into a beautiful piece of graphic design. It will then be used as a design gallery and it will travel around Sweden during July 2006, displaying a various range of peoples work.
This summer we offer a "Gott och blandat" exhibition of these people: Tanxxx (Bordeaux), Ian Stevenson (London,UK), Plastic Kid (Copenhagen, DK), Dawn (Carlisle, UK), Jenny Campbell & Hannah Caughlin (London, UK), Oskar Belin (Bollnäs, SWE), Hanna Lindkvist (Gothenburg, SWE), Anna Jans (Gothenburg, SWE), Motivesounds Recordings (Carlisle, UK), Bo Rutter, Wallride Collective (Växjö, SWE), Erik Hjalmarsson, Jan Beilecki, Niklas (MALMÖ?, SWE), Bob Cuthbertsson (Gretna Green, UK)
About TCP
The Caravan Project consists of three gentlemen;Petter Johansson,
Magnus Berg and Fredrik Öst. TCP is a non-profit group
that will use creative means and alot of laughter to bring
design and art back to the people. TCP also believes that
culture should inspire each other and we will work to make
that happend. For instance: what would design be without music
and music without design.
Don’t you think it is really sad with all that commercial that day in and day out is trying to trick us into consume. We certainly do and it’s about time that we strike back. The Caravan Project has therefore decided to launch a cunning counter campaign. Our first social campaign consists of imaginary coupons for people to download and print out, and to use in stores all over the world. No expiration date, they´ll last forever!
Please write to us and let us now how you’re coupons are working out. If you have a good idea for new coupons, please share your design, and we’ll publish it for people to download
Coupons can be found by pressing the below images.
This is how our beautiful Caravan looks like. It's our heart and soul. Press the P's for photos.
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Photography Henrik Petterson
Before we started our summer tour we had to do a lot of preparation. Here's some photos of merchandise being created and of our exhibition being planned. They were taken at 3AM the night before departure.
PHOTOS
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Okey, so our car was white. But how fun is that? So, we offered Erik, Jan and Niklas some spray cans and allowed them the freedom to decorate our car. It's now colourful and filled with intriguing illustrations.Oneline supplied us with spray cans and we are truly grateful. Cheers. No more talking, check out our riide.
PHOTOS
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3-4 July At Christiania we met friendly people from all over the world. They feed us with strawberries and they gave us a tent to sleep in at night. Thanks. We'll be back, definitely.
PHOTOS
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5 July Accelerator offered great music and Norska Dagbladet took pictures of Love Is All in front of the Caravan. As usual, Castro was popular.
PHOTOS
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7-8 July At The Market we listened to Surreal Lovers. We loved them. They were the best act that we have heard lately. Don't forget their name. Besides that our Mailing List was popular and people placed bids for work from both Plastic Kid and TANXXX.
PHOTOS
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13-15 July As expected, Arvika offered a wide audience of all sorts. Many people visited us and it was interesting to see that many people read our Manifesto. That's what we are all about. Hopefully people are starting to think. Judging from the response we received, we like to believe that that's the case.
PHOTOS
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10-12 Aug The people drank and they urinated as never before. Sweden is facing an election the 17th of September 2006. To start a debate and to get people involved, we organized an pre-election during the Emmaboda festival. The rules were easy, pee in the politicians mouths, and pee at the one you want to lose. After three days, the election was over, and after digging up the barrels we were able to reveal this years winner; Centerpartiet. Congratulations.
PHOTOS
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10-12 Aug Give me something poster brief. Artist from all over the world helped us to decorate this years toilets at the emmaboda festival with beautiful posters. It took 4 days working 18hours a day screenprinting them. Full details about the brief and artists participating can be found further down on this page. Batteries and cameras dont go together so we only have photos of a few of the contributions. We do have all the posters digitally and in time we'll publish them online.
PHOTOS
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23-25 Aug The summer ended in anarchy. The Malmö Festival was our last stop and we gave them a experimental gallery. We hung pieces from the ceiling and we didn't hesitate to brake as many rules possible.
PHOTOS
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NoMoreSchool#1 Petter finished university. To present his work at his final exhibition we printed elements[CUBA,YOURTV] from his university work in low transparency on 12 sheets of A3(89X126cm). We then coloured it in with cheap filt pen, and while doing it we made alot of strange patterns. Filt pen is fun, but it kills your arms.
PHOTOS
At 2006 Emmaboda festival, TCP
Poster Design
Brief: Give Me Something
Deadline: Early July 2006
We intend to decorate the filthy
toilets with memorable and eye-catching posters. Together with people
from all over the world we are going to see to that the toilets fight
against each other for peoples shit and piss. Sounds interesting?
So far we´ve found a lot of new friends and you can say hey to them all a
few steps below. If you wanna become one and join our earthly orgie
send us an email and we´ll drop you a line.
| Von Glitschka | US |
| Johan Lindgren | SWE |
| KarlssonWilker INC | US |
| Daniel Sutherland | UK |
| Magnus Jansson | SWE |
| Malin Grön | SWE |
| Oscar Belin | SWE |
| Myron Macklin | US |
| Raphaël | BEL |
| Saiman Chow | US |
| Anthony Sheret | UK |
| Peter Lundgren | SWE |
| Oskar Westerberg | SWE |
| Olof Bruce | SWE |
| Brian Langan | US |
| Diogo machado | POR |
| Anne Holmberg | SWE |
| Max Groundstroem | SWE |
| Tanxxx | FRA |
| Cake Industry | SWE |
| Emek | US |
| STATELESS | US |
| FiftySeven | UK |
| John Turner | US |
| Sune Ehlers | DK |
| Stephen Faustina | US |
| Joar Christoffersen | DK |
| Axel von Friesen | SWE |
| Petter Thörnqvist | SWE |
| GR/RR | UK |
| Eric Hjalmarsson | SWE |
| Doug Henderson | --- |
| Jan Bielecki | SWE |
| Ian Stevenson | UK |
| Daniel Eriksson | SWE |
| Colin Henderson | UK |
| Droog | UK |
| Jakob Ingemansson | SWE |
| Andy Smith | SWE |
24 March Snask is the design group behind The Caravan Project. Check the website out HERE
3 February SNASK = A swedish word with any and no meaning. Take it and use it, it's now yours! Do whatever you want with it. I snask you, are you a snask? I snask so.
31 January AGENTS: We right now have one agent on IKEA. We will plant two more. One in New York and one in London. Both on the finest agencies of course. They are there to infiltrate SNASK into every hidden hearts.
2 January Right now we're dreaming about a trip from Stockholm to Marocko. We would stop every once in a while and put up pink soccer goals. Perhaps we would bring some Snask and give to children or throw at angry men. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
11 September The photographer Henrik Peterson documented this year's Emmaboda Festival with his camera. We have put together a separate page with his photos. He has chosen to call the exhibition "The Perfect Society", and you can view it here.
The Caravan project have created this website. We can agree about that. In our opinion you´re free to use our work in what ever way you want as long as you don´t do it commercially. Actually we are glad if you use it, since it means that we have created good and visually pleasing design. If you decide to steal our work for commercial use we will have a hard time stopping you, but in the end, it will do you more harm than good. We know what we have created and so do you.
Appropriation is and will forever be a part of our design culture and we shouldn´t fear it. Our future design will grow stronger by letting others embrace it and add their own personal touch to it. We have therefore created the No Copyright symbol as a visual representation of our belief. If you share our views and opinions, feel free to download our No Copyright Symbol to spread the message.
Download: No_Copyright Symbol
We have a mascot. He is named after some guy from CUBA.
Our mascot was born sometime during the 70s. We dont know
where he has been before but he is with us now. If you want
to met our dog its just to come around the caravan, he is always there - barking.
CASTRO )
During the summer of 2006 we visited following cities. You can read more about each stop in column 2 and under the projects section.
| Malmö | 1-2 July |
| Köpenhamn | 3-4 July |
| GBG - Accelerator | 5 July |
| GBG - The Market | 7-8 July |
| Marsstrand | 10 July |
| Arvika Festival | 13-15 July |
| Karlstad | 18-19 July |
| PopvsSoul | 21 July |
| STHLM - Street | 22-24 July |
| Växjö | 26-27 July |
| Emmaboda Festival | 10-12 Aug |
| STHLM - UNG08 | 15-19 Aug |
| Malmö Festival | 21-25 Aug |
Tour T-shirt for sale, but only when you see us on the road.
The Caravan project has created a symbol for art to the people.. It inspired by the official war crest, but it has gone through a massive re-make. If you sympatise with the collective idea that art is for the people and not only for those with money, than wear it with pride and spread the message.
Download: Art To The People
Our world has become a place based around daily routines, depression and boredom. Our public space is occupied with ad after ad. That visual expression is breastfeeding the people of our world of what pure and real beauty is. Art Galleries which used to be a peaceful place for everybody in the society has today turned into white rooms with aesthetic, posh idealism. Instead of a warm and friendly atmosphere it is speaking in a clear tone: Keep out! The time has come to change that attitude.
1. Galleries should welcome everyone regardless ethnicity, race, political viewpoint, class, background, job, status etc. Every gallery should salute any artist with open arms and say: Hey, in my house, you’re allowed to drink milk straight from the can, okay?
2. Galleries should be free and open for anyone to use or visit. There must be no fees or economic interest from the gallery itself. To survive the gallery should sell merchandise and other products that don’t interfere with the artist’s and the peoples freedom.
3. There must always be a general interest in art and design. Today the public tend to avoid the galleries that from the beginning was made for them. To keep a common curiosity we need to work together against the posh white rooms that seems to been made for only a certain group of people. Today pretentious and idealistic galleries discriminate creative people. Only the ones that are hyped by the media or have the right contacts get access to the tragic glorious world of the white rooms. Let’s dance around the awful space and salute each other with embraces and open arms.
4. Provoking art should never be disallowed as long as the artist can explain why he/she wants to create it. Art is a form of communication and if it creates reactions in any way it should be classified as art and belong in a gallery.
5. A gallery should always display quality and professional art and design. Just because a gallery isn’t posh and pretentious doesn’t mean that it cant be professional and show high quality work.
6. All form of art and design should connect and work together. Not until music, film, design, art, poetry and every other part of culture is working collectively towards a common aim can we start to imagine a world free from posh, fake and discriminating galleries.
7. For too long has there been a clash between the pretentious culture elite and the general public. It is time for art and design to reach its righteous owner, the people.
Stockholm Bandhagen 2006-06-08
Disclaimer #1
I know Petter Johansson. He is a dear friend of mine, and a person who
I respect and love. I´ve watched him develop as an artist, as a designer
and as a pretty good drinker. I am also familiar with the thoughts of
Petter and his manifesto, and without taking credit from him, I state my
claim to be a part of it, from inspiring endless discussions about
art/design through the years.
Disclaimer #2
By the time I am writing this piece of criticism, I know where it
will be published. I know because that was the deal the entire time. I do not
get paid to do this, therefore, I do not consider anyone as my
employer -not economically, nor socially -. But I think it will affect
the structure of this text. You need to consider this.
THE MANIFESTO OF THE CARAVAN - Will it last the summer?
Manifesto of the caravan is a brilliant lyric explosion, in idealism,
naivism and pure beauty. It holds seven different points, all surrounding
the issue of power. Who rules over art, over land and over reception? Who
rules over the design and outlook of the places we associate with
contemporary art? The answer is in the text my friend, the answer is
blowing in the wind. This is as a matter of fact one of the most honest
and subtile reactions to economic canonisation of art I have ever witnessed.
As the manifesto is passing through your conscience, it prevents you from
breaking the fall of the walls we call the artworld. Why? Because it does
not play by the same rules. See, every now and then, peopole strife to reclaim
the artworld from the economic powermen in black polo shirts. The problem is:
They always do it the same way as the powermen in black polo shirts. They do it
the way the power wants them to. And when they succeed; In an instant second they
transform there idealism, and become the new powermen in black polo shirts.
As this manifesto holds the values of the classic, Swedish good old fashion small
town ethics, It has that as it's most obvious problem. People will question it
because this manifesto is sprung from something else than the posh galleries world.
This problem opens up the next question: Who is entitled to criticise? Maybe the caravan
is the best way to perform a critical point, from witch you make people decide and maybe
even make a turn; but does that mean that I can no longer visit my other favourite galleries?
NO, I don't think so, but I think the time is right for an alternative. This is a good alternative.
My fear is that this will be a successful project. Misread me the right way: My fear is that this project will make it big in the world, and the concept will change. My fear is that these guys could become the new elite. The original concept is created round the issue of deconstruction of the elite. It would be sad to all that energy get lost in the progress.
Erik Berg (Not Magnus Brother)
erikberg@hotmail.com
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