Royal Institute of Art has met with some of the school’s Bachelor students, who exhibited at Marabouparken in Stockholm in the early summer. This fall, the students begin their first year of the Master’s program. Read about their work, process and practice in this digital interview series. Exhibition photos and program from the Bachelor Show can be found here.
– You participated in the Bachelor exhibition at Marabouparken with several works. Tell us which ones.
I participated with three works: the installations In Between and A Letter to Her and a performance where I did two readings titled “dear” and “Home”.
In Between is an installation of textiles, wooden houses and scent, where I use recycled clothes and fabrics to seek awareness. A Letter to Her comprises a multi-channel video installation, projected with multiple layers of organza and bridal veil textiles. In both works, visitors visit unknown places and inner journeys.
We, BFA-students, also organised a finissage for the last day of the exhibition, with open performative works for the public. I read “dear 2” in Swedish, and offered tea and coffee according to a Somali tradition called “gahwe”.
Tea and companionship have been recurring elements in my readings, and for this occasion visitors were invited to smell the aromas and take them home. It is important for me to give visitors the chance to activate as many senses as possible.
– How did you develop the installation In Between?
In Between is based on scent, textiles and site-specific themes – a continuation of previous works focusing on materials and visitors.
The installation was going to be a challenge, I knew that from start. But I never imagined the process would be as complex as it became. But then again, I thrive in “complicated and chaos” so that has probably been an advantage – at least in this context.
For me, the journey of clothes – from body to wardrobe to recycling – is a kind of metaphor for displacement, the constant search for something better. The clothes belong neither to place nor person. In In Between however, they are given a new context together with each other and the work. Moreover, the body is permanent and is still present in the identity of the clothes.
It was important the garments shared the same history: having been both worn and discarded before parting the installation. With a little persuasion, friends and Stadsmissionen in Hallunda donated sacks of used clothes that I could use. After that, everything was sewn together by hand because sewing machines, it turned out, do not sew the way In Between requires.
After the Bachelor Show at Marabouparken, the garments will be recycled again, raising questions about the beginning and the end of the work, about nomadism and about transience.
– Tell us more about the frame that supports the installation.
Visitors are welcome to enter In Between, and it is supported by a wooden house frame. The idea is that when you enter, you enter an in-between state of pure existence, wandering between worlds, traveling to, from and through the present and the past. Scents surrounds visitors as they walk or sit around, reflecting a sense of home, a home that does not exist.
“A simple construction job” I thought of the frame. After all, it won’t be visible. But it required both help and resources, mainly from Annette Felleson (Adjunct and Head of the Wood Workshop at the Royal Institute of Art). She taught me everything I did not know about wood.
“You need to redo that one” was the first thing she said when I showed her my first sketch of the work and I did. I redid everything. In Annette’s world there are no centimeters, only millimeters, so the dimensions were the first to go. Four weeks later, we finished, and no one was happier than the two of us that night.
– The studio seems to be an important place for you. Could you to tell us more of how you worked with it for this show?
I am a time optimist with a hundred thoughts and ideas at once. I’m often unsure where to begin, which idea to choose first. I like to explore all the possibilities before I start on something, which means that time is all too often quite short.
In the creative process, I block out everything else, which was what I did for the Bachelor Show, too. Nothing else exists and I end up in my own little artistic world.
In the run-up to the show, I’ve been in the studio every day, working on my projects. With Tinariwen mixed with classical music in the background, I can sit and create for hours, the time flows away and I disappear into a bubble. During such a period, I hardly see family and friends, but I think it’s worth it to be able to focus.
