[NICE] A forwarded greeting from John Duncan

["Ingrid Engarås"]

Greetings, 


Today my residency in Stockholm ends.   
Several months longer than the organization that invited me here hoped I'd be 
able to last.  The support that's come from the community of artists, critics, 
curators 
and sponsors here in Stockholm, throughout Scandanavia, Europe, the 
United States, Japan and China -- everywhere consistently vocal, and 
far more substantial, than anyone involved ever expected -- a peak 
moment of my life.   


Many people who have followed the evolving situation created by IASPIS 
over the last several months agree that this support is about much more 
essential issues than my art, or me personally.  It's about refusing to 
accept being dictated to, by anyone, over what can be done and said. 
It's about verifying the fact that an atmosphere of so-called 
'political correctness' in fact stifles the ideals it promotes, that 
this atmosphere is counterproductive to creative acts of any kind, 
anywhere, as well as to the people who perform them.  Their help and 
encouragement has been an inspiration to witness. 


At this point the situation created by IASPIS is being dealt with in 
two ways.   


One is simply to keep working.  Here is a list of upcoming events, 
several of them in Sweden: 

http://www.johnduncan.org/news.html. 


Another is to respond with legal action against IASPIS and its funding 
entity for breach of contract.  In Swedish courts, against an office of 
the Swedish state.  Jan Palmblad, staff lawyer in Sweden for Greenpeace 
with twenty years of court victories over corporate bullying, has 
offered to handle this case free of charge.  Letters of Intent were 
delivered and filed last week. 


During my stay, I've been fortunate enough to work with several close 
friends and organizations whose art deserves your attention: 


Ingrid Engarås : artist, improvisor, member and organizer 
of events at Fylkingen.  Her powerful yet delicate solo audio work will 
be available later this year on Firework Edition and Touch.  While 
pregnant, she singlehandedly organized the international protest 
campaign directed to IASPIS and the Swedish minister of culture, coordinated a 
fund-raising event at Fylkingen in March, and made contact with Jan 
Palmblad to bring the case to the Swedish courts.   


Carl Abrahamsson* 

Mats Bigert & Lars Bergström 

Leif Elggren* 

Max Fergusson 

Russell Haswell 

Jean-Louis Huhta* 

Benny Nilsen 

Thomas Nordanstad 

Mikael Prey (a.k.a. Fetish 23)* 

Kent Tankred* 

Carl Michael von Hausswolff* 


....and the entire board of Fylkingen*, for 
voting to lodge an official protest of IASPIS' actions. 
Fylkingen www.fylkingen.se , with a respected and established reputation 
that dates from 1933, became the sole art institution in 
Sweden with the courage to speak publicly against the state's most 
powerful funding organization for international art exchange. 


* Check links to sites of their work at: 

http://www.johnduncan.org/audiolink.html. 

http://www.johnduncan.org/imagelink.html 

http://www.johnduncan.org/JDlink.html. 



Best, 

John Duncan