Looking back, I see the flow of time. I light a candle in the stillness of the winter night. Countless starry points shine back at it from inside my heart, connecting me with somebody just across the road, as well as with other, more faraway places… with Stockholm, Fulltofta and Toulouse; with Kyiv, Järna, and Ermetzhof; with Bengaluru, Berlin, and New York; with Tyresö, Tokyo and Turku…
A constellation of love, friendship, creativity and care.
January: the past year began with the maps of Robertho and Frank finally completed. I was invited to write an article on the Mapping Praxis project, for a “special issue” of an art journal, and took it as an incitement to collect my thoughts on maps and mapping.
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February: with the mapping text more or less finished, I realized that the journal that issued the invitation might not be quite the high-standard scientific publication that it claimed to be. In the end, I decided to withdraw the article, to instead take up the more rewarding work of making another map… This one, again, presented me with new challenges. The story of “I” – my partner in dialogue – was layered in ways that the preceding ones weren’t; I chose to add an underlying lining, visible only in certain places; and to insert “zoom-in” spots, using the sketchwork that “I” had provided me with during our first conversation. It took quite a few tries, and some emailing, to make the map resonate with the emotions and conceptualizations of my conversation partner.
And on February 22nd, I had the honour to meet street artist Gamlet Zinkivskyi from Charkiv on one of his sparse visits outside Ukraine – giving an artist talk at the “Ukraine Culture Now” event.
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March: in the first days of the month, the Praxis of Social Imaginaries study circle held its last gathering at the Sigtuna Foundation. Parallel with reading and discussing Olaus Magnus’ A Description of the Northern Peoples, ideas of how to launch a continued study circle emerged from informal conversations…
On the last day of the gathering, I was approached by fellow participant Titi, wanting to share her story for another embroidered map – a task that I happily welcomed. I also had the opportunity to reconnect with Obinna, and ask him some complementary questions about his itinerary (which was now next in turn for a visualization). This time, the challenge came explicitly from my partner in dialogue: Obinna’s map had to be a three-dimensional one, since his native place is in the mountainous parts of Southeast Nigeria. Recalling the chest-like world model of the 6th century traveler and Christian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, I immediately began working with it on returning home. A partial sun eclipse happened on March 29th, and I could watch it while making a cardboard maquette… which sparked the idea of “half a yellow sun” on the gable of the chest (I then hadn’t read the book with the same title by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie).
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April: a six weeks’ teaching commission began, leaving little time for the Mapping Praxis project. As spring flowers came to bloom, I managed to make the vaulted papier-mâché lid of the chest, though.
And to learn to know the folk high school class was – as always – a joy; this type of education very much promotes care, curiosity and collaborative approaches… My presentation on the institutional theory of art (aka the art world theory) was met with immediate and creative response.
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In mid-May, the teaching commission was finished, and I could go back to the mappings. Now Obinna’s chest was assembled, and a 3D mountain was made to fit inside. I decided to use egg tempera for the painting, and tried out a floral design, borrowed from an African textile and reminding of a hibiscus flower. It turned out that Obinna highly approved of Chimamande Ngozi Adichie’s novel – and so, the sun was there to stay on his map.
As the planning for a continuation of the Praxis circle proceeded, I also attended Researching Imaginaries; an online lecture programme launched by the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary at HDK-Valand (Gothenburg University) and the Royal Institute of Art (Stockholm). The programme stretched over five days, presenting interfaces between politics and contemporary art ,explored by artistic researchers from Eastern and Southern Europe as well as the Nordics.
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June is a very busy time in the garden. Nevertheless, the lid of Obinna’s chest got painted, too – in lapis lazuli blue.
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July: traveling to Jyväskylä for the Nordic Summer University Summer session 2025, where our proposal for a new study circle, under the title of Studies in Remoteness, was finally presented. Initiated by Dr. Lindsey Drury and the working team in early March, the proposal now got approved by the NSU Board, and by the General Assembly of NSU members on July 26th. Along with Lindsey, I found myself study coordinator for the three coming years.
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In August, I took a day in Åbo / Turku, to meet again with Obinna, Titi and Dorcus of the Praxis circle. Returning home, I had gathered more information to be visualized in the Mapping Praxis itineraries. I could also improve “I’s” itinerary with some tiny animals made out of wood… and finish my reading of Half a Yellow Sun.
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September: the lapis lazuli lid of Obinna’s itinerary somehow called me back to studio painting; I took a couple of weeks off from the Mapping Praxis project, and spent time with a blue / orange Human Being Image.
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October: the Remoteness team was gaining momentum, with bi-weekly online meetings. It remains the working group, where study planning and connected tasks are constantly processed; meanwhile, the executive bits are mainly the work of coordinators. In October, we published our very first Call for Participation for the 2026 Winter Session – a three days’ symposium set to happen in Berlin in late January.
The last days of October – during the autumn break – I spent in Igelsta primary school, doing maintenance work on Star Roads, the commission I had for the city of Södertälje in 2018. Seven years later, there’s still no deliberate damage done to it, but quite some wear and tear. (After all, these kids are teenagers!)
The autumn break stretched into the first days in November, and I worked through the weekend to finish my work before school started again. Unexpectedly, I found myself sharing the space with several dozens of young basket players – as it turned out that the city of Södertälje proudly hosted an annual basket cup finale for schoolkids, and Igelsta was one of the venues. We went along well, though, and I accomplished my task in time (more or less).
Sadly, one of these days a young person was killed nearby the school . No basket player, certainly, but a former student at Igelsta school – one of the kids that may have been sitting in the space that I now was renovating. On the short walk from the school to the train station, I passed a place where candles were lit for him. I stayed a while, sharing the moment with some of his friends.
May peace be upon his memory. May no other kid have to suffer his fate.
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December: I had three short-term commissions for the folk high school this autumn – the last one being to give an introduction to lino cutting. I took this as an occasion to refresh my experience in lino print, and realized that this technique could be useful for the making of Titi’s itinerary. As for Obinna’s map, I now had to look into the ancient Nigerian Nsibidi scripture, which I knew nothing about before.
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A year passed. Encounters, conversations, experiences and emotions finding their way into images and objects – while Earth still travels silently and swiftly with the Universe.
Helena Hildur W. 