I hand carve my work from one solid piece of linden wood. The sculptures depict objects from my close surroundings that all stem from the same event, when I was assigned a new personal identity number as a result of legally changing my gender. I work with A4 papers, identification documents that I was meant to always carry with me, and a torn old jacket. The jacket’s sleeves have holes where my wrist chafed against my hip. The objects are fragile, worn, and about to fall apart, but when I carve them, they become hard and stable, as if frozen in time.
My practice involves a way of documenting and preserving the traces of the old personal number/person. An attempt to save something that is slowly eroding, to remember something that is getting to be easier to forget. The handmade nature of the work offers a physical way of remembering, through the hands rather than only the mind.
I always have the original object in front of me when I carve the works. I measure, look, feel my way so that every scratch, hole, crease, and stitch is transferred to the wood. The process is repetitive and time-consuming, but slowly the object emerges, as if it had always been there.
Images:
01.
A4 (2025) Linden wood, gesso and graphite, 29,5 × 20,5 cm. Photo: Alden Jansson
02.
Installation view of -8586, Galleri Mejan (2024). Photo: Alden Jansson
