My artistic practice is committed to exploring the possibilities of art as a language, practice and space for social and political change. I approach art as a specific form of knowing; of thinking, doing and relating to the world. This interest oscillates between art and research, between the studio and the classroom, between individual creation and collective transformation, between the professional art world and the role art plays in our everyday lives.
My artistic work can be considered in the tradition of “social sculpture” as it intervenes in, and aims at contributing to, society, and takes the form of self-organized spaces, institutional processes, installations, performances, workshops, sound and printed matter. Starting out as a sculptor by training, my thinking is three dimensional and site specific. The work I do always relates to the spaces that I am invited to; the structures, the people, the historical and material conditions. It is a critical practice that simultaneously questions the conditions and structures of the specific context. Working in a feminist tradition every process aims at being situated and embodied. Works of artists like Ana Mendieta, Coco Fusco and Adrian Piper informed my early work and led me from sculpting objects to a more performance and installation-based practice, driven by the need to be “in the room”; to be in conversation with people and to work both transdisciplinary and participatory.
A work that has informed a lot of my later practice is Malmö Free University for Women (2006-2011), a feminist organization for art and knowledge production that I founded together with artist Johanna Gustavsson in 2006. For five years we arranged hundreds of activities together with our community, and later in collaboration with different art institutions. We also published the book “Do the Right Think – a handbook by MFK”. Working with MFK sparked my interest in pedagogy and the epistemological aspects of art, as well as art as an instigator in social change and community.
From this experience we formed the think tank on Radical Pedagogy, where we explored the subject of pedagogy in dialogue with a group of radical colleagues that work in the intersection of art and pedagogy. We were invited to work with different groups as the 16 Beaver Group in New York, the acting board at Flutgraben, Berlin, and the student run space Der Salon in Munich as well as the research project “Practice International”, initiated by Iaspis (Stockholm), CasCo (Utrecht), and Iniva (London).
Another strand of my practice involves initiating projects that brings marginalized communities closer to the contemporary art scene, with my work for Folkrörelsernas Konstfrämjande, a Swedish organization with the aim to give access to “art for everyone”. My work was mainly aimed at supporting art education initiatives within social movements, but also to challenge art institutions notions of quality, to consider a wider range of expressions to be included in the art scene (see for example Konstkupan, an open studio for and by asylum seekers, Den Nya Konstbildningen a project that connects young people in social movements with professional artists, Malmö Konstverkstad an education that combines studies for higher education with contemporary art and Konströrelser, a symposium for art institutions on current art movements within social movements).
I often collaborate in my practice, for instance with sound artist Julia Gierz, with the performance group I Still Live in Water (Felicia Konrad and Johan Haugen) and the artist network Inom en snar framtid. I am one of the initiators of UNICORN – artists in solidarity, a group of artists and cultural workers that hosts a residency in Malmö for artists that cannot, for political reasons, express themselves freely in their home country.
Lisa Nyberg’s work has been exhibited at Bildmuseet, the Research Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Kunsthal Aarhus, Konsthall C, Trondheim Art Biennial, Signal – Center for Contemporary Art, Röda Sten, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Dunkers Kulturhus, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Gothenburg Art Museum, Rooseum among others. She has been awarded several working grants from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, the IASPIS project studio in Stockholm as well as the Malmö City Grant for Artistic Development. She teaches regularly at art academies in the Nordic countries, as The Royal Danish Art Academy, The Danish National School of Performing Arts, Konstfack, HDK-Valand, Malmö University and others.