Work Type: Installation

Time to Stay

Time to stay is a commissioned work for Rubinvägen outside of Stockholm. The work relates to the changing cityscape and population by discussing time, circulation and traces. The work consists in three parts: Then, Now and Soon. The oak is a central element in all three parts. The work was conducted in collaboration with residents in the area and actively involves the residents aswell as the visitors of the area through their everyday movements.

Then is a number of marks after the bigger trees that grew around Rubinvägen before new houses were built in the area. The annual rings after each tree has been sandblasted into the limestone of the new houses’ entrance halls. On new walking paths the circumference of the trees have been marked through carriage bolts hammered into the asphalt.

Now are seating marks in park benches. The residents in the area have contributed to the work by leaving their seating marks. 14 of these have been cut out in oak and made as intarsia into the pinewood benches. The wood of the benches has been impregnated with an organic method which make the wood age naturally.

Soon is a big oak that has been planted in the area. Some big trees were taken down when the new houses in the area were built. I saved oak corns from the area and let them grow to plants. At the inauguration of the work, the residents were invited to make a common planting of 12 of the plants, in order to let a new oak grow in the area. An oak is said to grow for 300 years, live for 300 years and die for 300 years.

Commissioner: Konstnärscentrum öst and Stockholm Konst
Art consultant: Birgitta Silfverhielm
Special thanks to all the residents who contributed with their seating marks

Postcards from Gränby

Postcards from Gränby was a site-specific, temporary installation commissioned by Uppsala municipality in Sweden. The work consisted in five signs placed in the nature surrounding a big shopping mall. Just next to the shopping mall are fields and pastures and one of Swedens oldest churches.  At the time of the installation, the area was undergoing major change – there were plans for a new residential area, an arena and more.

Postcards from Gränby, which is the name of the piece, want to get your eyes to slow down and see the process underway in the area, which is under heavy development and commercialisation of a rate that might not only make us charmed by the desire to buy and hope for the future. Himmel och fält / Sky and field notes laconically a subtitle in front of, well, a sky and a field. Natur / Nature it says in front of a grove. Kulturbygd / Cultural heritage recites a banner in front of Vaksala Church, which during its nearly 1,000-year of age during a justifiable time has been an obvious focal point in the landscape. The flashy shopping centre that the big mall constitutes, you might say, has stolen the historic building’s position on the plain. Or inherited. The old stone body from the 1100s is of course, if you choose this perspective, part of the same human movement, the domestic annexation, as Gränby Centre is.

—Sebastian Johans, excerpt from a review in Uppsala Nya Tidning, 2016

Postcards from Gränby is produced with support from Uppsala Municipality and is part of the Uppsala Municipality Art Collection.

I Only Get to Borrow the Forest

The exhibition in the Möklintas Community Center came as a result of a three-week artist residency in the village of Möklinta outside Sala, Sweden. The exhibition took its starting point in some of the stories and collaborations that the villagers of Möklinta had shared with me during my residency.

Together with the nonprofit association World Cup Woodpilers and Möklinta school’s fourth graders, we built a woodpile in the middle of the Community Center’s large hall. On the wall behind the woodpile was hung a photograph of the almost 18 metres high woodpile that was built in 1992 in Möklinta. The pile became the world’s highest and led to the formation of the World Cup Woodpilers. The group has since worked as an NGO for disadvantaged families in Tukums, Latvia.

In another part of the hall, the local weaving group Möklinta Shuttlers showed their weaves. The group consists of around twenty members who have met and woven together for over 20 years.

Through the hall, the sound of the three church choirs of Möklinta, recorded during an exercise, echoed. From another speaker was heard the whisper of the wind, a direct sound from a microphone set in a tree just outside the Community Center.

Based on conversations with Möklinta residents, I produced quotes and installed them on one of the hall’s short sides. Some quotes were also found in three photographs taken in an old forest in Möklinta. The title of the exhibition comes from one of the quotes. At the inauguration I performed a performance / reading.

A video made by Lars Dareberg:

The residency was supported by the Aguéli Museum, Sala Municipality, Möklinta Community Center, The Region of Västmanland, Konstfrämjandet Västmanland and Kulturrådet.

Out Here, Everything Seemed OK

Temporary outdoor installation in the woods of Kaknäs, Stockholm, as part of the outdoor exhibition Silent Spring that took place during the first spring of the pandemic of Covid-19.

The installation consisted of words of human height, built from found branches, intertwined with the trees, with the help of wild grass strings. The words formed the sentence: OUT HERE EVERYTHING SEEMED OK.