In public space, Signe Johannessen works together with artist Erik Rören as the duo Rören/Johannessen. They intervene in and influence a given environment by investigating the needs of those people who use it. Rören/Johannessen are interested in a site’s historical description and its potential. The work is carried out through close collaborations with selected groups. Their methods include a collective and context-dependent working process that influences the resulting artwork. Rören/Johannessen strive to open up public spaces and make them relevant and communicative for different groups in society. Together they work actively for a more open, more inclusive and more tolerant social atmosphere; and they often begin by considering marginalized questions and/or repressed social issues.
Rören/Johannessen aim to share the feeling that they have when they work in public space: that citizens can influence their shared spaces and their society, and that anything can be possible. Rören/Johannessen’s work strives to highlight hidden powers and social structures. In this manner, they carry both the artistic process and citizens closer to the final result, to decision-making and, by extension, to the decision makers. Rören/Johannessen’s projects in public space are all about displacing power through joy, community and dialogue.