REINVENTING BEYOND INDUSTRIALISM
To describe Eau & Gaz AB we need to make a little detour:
”Eau et gaz à tous les étages” is a sign one can still find on older buildings in France. It was put on the façade to show that the building was part of the urban, communal system. A system that connected everyone, rich to poor.
The only book about Marcel Duchamp, authorized by and even designed by Duchamp himself, the Robert Lebel monograph published in 1959, was given that title in its special edition. A gesture that could be regarded as a bit surprising for an artist famous for his refusal to be a part of anything or any group. But maybe Marcel Duchamp gives us a hint to why he became the most influential artist of the 20th century. He was the first artist to point out that we need to understand the context we are acting within in order to achieve original thoughts, to make structural changes – and to be relevant.
Just as Marcel Duchamp reinvented the very idea of art back then, today we need to do the same trick on our societal structures. We need to rethink and reinvent the conditions under which our common society is organized. The climate issue is of course a huge problem in itself, but it is more than anything the result of a brief period in the history of mankind, industrialism.
So, it is time to reinvent beyond industrialism. And today, in a digital world, we actually have the possibility to seek new models of living, of coexisting, of sharing – in governance, in business as well as in democratic systems. It is simply time to rethink, to reuse forgotten knowledge, to recycle and upcycle – in order to reinvent solidified systems.
That is the starting point for the existence of this company, named Eau & Gaz.
JAN ÅMAN.
Jan Åman is an entrepreneur, curator, writer and activist specialized in the intersection between cities, buildings, food, art and social phenomena. Since January 2018 he is the creative director – responsible for strategy and innovation – of the development of Duved, a small village in the North of Sweden, where the country-side is turned into the engine of social innovation (instead of the big city). Prior to that he was the concept developer of the innovation hub A house in Stockholm. In 2015 his then company, AtelierSlice, was commissioned to produce and curate the innovation program for the USA pavilion at the World’s Fair in Milan (see feedingtheaccelerator.com). He co-curated the process to develop the city of Upplands Väsby 2010-15. He was the curator of De ou par Marcel Duchamp par Ulf Linde at the Royal Swedish Art Academy (2011), and the editor (with Daniel Birnbaum) of the book following the exhibition. He founded and directed (1995-2008) Färgfabriken, a contemporary laboratory rather than an ordinary art space, which under his direction four time produced one of the world’s ten best exhibition according to Artforum Magazine in New York. He curated seminal exhibitions with artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Carsten Höller, Doug & Mike Starn, David Byrne, Nathalie Djurberg and Jenny Wiklund. He received two government commissions to generate innovation through food. In 2016 he was visiting professor at UC Louvain in Belgium, with architect Mia Hägg. In 2015 he initiated the studio The Feast at Städelschule in Frankfurt. He was a founding studio partner at Harvard GSD 2012-15 (headed by OMA/NY) and has and will lecture for the studios of Farshid Moussavi at Harvard GSD.
TOMAS RITTSEL.
During eight years (2005-13) worked at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce with public affairs and policy processes with a focus on urban development, city planning, infrastructure and housing. Mixing that policy know-how with innovative and creative processes on the future of cities and urbanity he then moved on to work at Atelier Slice (2013-17). Combining an understanding of a visionary level with making processes and ideas a reality, Tomas took on the role as project manager for the design and re-construction phase of the innovation hub A house in Stockholm. He now plays the same role in the following company, Eau & Gaz, making the visionary and innovative structures – of how Duved and the country-side is turned into the innovation hub of our common future, be it rural or urban – come into reality.
