Ställbergs gruva aims to be a place where the big questions become personal – and the personal becomes part of the big questions. A place for learning, doubt, and the living. Collective and individual. Existential and political. A place where outer space and world markets lean in together with the soil and worms and roots, and the echoes of human voices in an old machine room. Ställbers gruva is run by the business association The non existent Center, and is based in an abandoned iron ore mine in Ställberg, in the municipality of Ljusnarsberg, Örebro region.
Ställbergs gruva runs an extensive interdisciplinary residency program with international as well as local guests. Within this program artists, writers, researchers and other professionals share working space, practices and thoughts, in dialogue with the place, its surroundings and social conditions.
Parallel to these activities, the group is preoccupied with a radical transition of the grounds and buildings of the mine, where energy efficient solutions for heating and sustainable construction materials are used. The aim is to make possible for a larger group of people to live and work there year-round.
The activities at Ställbergs gruva take place in a probing agonism and agreement and is based in an openness to all living things, history, and our common ground. These activities – whether they are a choir, a publication, or a conversation at the Nittälven shore – can be described as artistic social inquiry. These inquiries take their starting point in a curiosity to understand, and a will to find common ground in a large and unfathomable world, or in feelings of anger, powerlessness and concern.
Alexandra is a part owner of Ställbergs gruva and between 2012 – 2016 she was part of the project management team. Together with Carl Oscar Sjögren and Karin Linderoth she worked as project managers for the whole initiative. During this period they produced the festivals Hope Tourist Centre and Dopet, the exhibition Atlas – från slumrande materia till kommunen and the community theatre Den fullständiga berättelsen om Ljusnarsberg och resten av världen.
Alexandra Wingate 