There are experiences and feelings that I have not been able to process in the moment when they occurred. Instead of ”taking in” what happened I ”take in” the room where it happened. The space then becomes a storage for these experiences. In order not to lose the knowledge that I have stored if I am unable to return to these places, I take them with me. Not just memories, something more physical. I carve out a place for them under my ribcage. I carry them in my body, where they are saved until the time comes when I am able to return and renegotiate them.
A part of my artistic practice is to take these rooms out from my body to collect the experiences I stored there. I return to these places because it is there, in the red chair, in the radiator, the dirty yellow blankets, the bright green sofa in the hallway, and the narrow beds, that I left something. I need to go back and get it.
So, I look inward. Gently and very carefully I pull out the specific rooms from my body and open them. To open the rooms means to re-examine and see if the material can be used for something else. It is an act of processing. I return with a deep feeling of gratefulness. A gratefulness that the rooms have encapsulated my experiences and taken care of them, so I didn’t have to do it. Now when I open them, I use the substance from them to build landscapes in the form of spatial installations. I navigate around the sculptures and the drawings. To use the encapsulated material as some kind of building blocks for landscapes made of feelings. They’re landscapes that reveal my refusal to disappear.
Images:
01.
To leave trace (the boredom) (2025) Styrofoam and wax, 186 cm x 102 cm x 63 cm.
Photo by: Alden Jansson
02.
To leave trace (maps) (2025) Styrofoam and wax, 120 cm x 173 cm x 37 cm
Photo by: Alden Jansson
03
To leave trace (nightmares) (2025) Styrofoam and wax, 63 cm x 150 cm x150 cm
Photo by: Alden Jansson
04
The landscape reveals my refusal to disappear (2025) Floor paint, 9,5 m x 6 m
Photo by: Alden Jansson
05.
To draw with language (2025) Wall paint, dimensions vary
Photo by: Alden Jansson
