Ultras Youth in Ultra Fotboll och politik vid Medelhavet Göteborg

The installation is based on light boxes and framed pictures, with videos and original objects.

A selection of Ultras Youth with is now on show at Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities of Goteborg in a brilliantly curated exhibition on football and politics, among brilliant installations by researchers and image makers.

Starting from the collection We need no education (North Africa and Asia), the installation tells about strategies and ploys of ultras groupes to stay afloat in their societies: I can’t breathe, I do want to breathe, I try to breathe, how do I breathe? Ultras groups as a destituent power?

It is clear enough that ultras are not a classic political subject, no category seems to be appropriate to define their way to stay afloat in their societies. They are not feminist, not right wing, not left wing, not extra parliament, they are not anarchist, they are not libertarian, they are not progressive, but certainly one cannot say they are reactionary. They are just ultras. And no one can deny their ability to get into the public scene. (Ultras Youth Manifesto by Giovanni Ambrosio).

From official press release:

The successful Ultra – Football and Politics in the Mediterranean goes to the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg in July. The exhibition was shown in 2022 at the Mediterranean Museum in Stockholm, where it attracted a large audience. The exhibition is based on the Arab Spring of 2010-2012, when football supporters were often at the centre of many of the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Ultra describes how chants moved from football stadiums to the streets to overthrow governments. Flags with the colours of different football clubs could be seen in protest marches and chants could be heard in town squares. The power otherwise used to support their own team was mobilised to protest against those in power.

It’s sometimes said that football and politics don’t mix. But the truth is often rather different, not least on the terraces.During the Arab Spring of 2010 — 2012, fan groups played a central role in a number of the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Flags bearing the colours of various clubs were on display in protest marches, and the chants of the terraces made their way to public squares. Energies that were normally devoted to supporting a particular team were used to depose governments. And the thing all of these groups had in common was that they referred to themselves as Ultras. Who were these groups? What is the link between politics and fanatical devotion to a club? In this exhibition, film-makers, researchers, photographers and journalists offer their own perspective on these questions. Using a variety of documentation from different countries around the Mediterranean, we examine fandom as a cultural phenomenon.