Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen
11–26 August 2007
Opening Saturday 11 August 6-9pm
In Finnish there is an expression – valituskuoro- that means ”complains choir” and is used to describe situations where a lot of people complain at the same time. The artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen got the idea to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir.
Since complaining is a universal phenomenon the project could be organised in any city around the world. Springhill Institute in Birmingham were the first to organise a complaints choir and it was a success. The artists continued to initiate complaints choirs in Helsinki, St Petersburg and Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg but the aparent big need worldwide led them to open a web site encouraging people to form their own complaints choirs. Today there are complaints choirs in e.g. Pittsburgh, Jerusalem, Gabriola, Basel, Melbourne, Budapest and now in Malmö.
The exhibition Complaints Choir at Signal consists of an installation of four films documenting the choirs of Birmingham, Helsinki, St Petersburg and Hamburg-Wilhemsburg. Between 17-24 August the Malmö Complaints Choir will perform in various public locations in Malmö.
