November came and went… I got a few days in the studio, but most of the time was spent carrying out commissions in nearby city Södertälje and rural village Gnesta. First, I did this Dreams workshop at Södertälje konsthall – together with curator-educator Sarah Guarino Florén – where partaking teenagers shared daydreams and night dreams, making conceptual self portraits (a homage to contemporary artist Anna Sörenson!) and a huge, gold-laced dream catcher…
Dream workshop with secondary school students at Södertälje konsthall; photo HHW.
…and then, I suddenly found myself being the organizer of a very unique event in Gnesta: the world premiere of True Intention, a short documentary film by Ronnit Hasson about branding artist Linda Nordfors and Art Agency Reflection Company. This came about because of my involvement with Långsjö teater – a regional theatre group in Gnesta, the village close to my homeplace where also Ronnit and Linda are based. My undertaking at the theatre is to develop the Artist-in-Residence and community work… and, well – this was a collaboration too appealing not to explore…
True Intention invites us to follow an art project with focus on sustainability; the artist reflects upon and re-interprets the brand of BillerudKorsnäs – a leading paper packaging and pulp company. Linda’s response comes out as the ingenious design of a series of objects such as fashion dresses, director’s chairs, a history cabinet and pine tree trunks – all made from various kinds of paper. The artefacts end up forming a pedagogical space at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology… and the BillerudKorsnäs staff are left with new ideas about sustainability, innovation and corporate identity.
The film documentary mirrors this fascinating hybrid process, mapping out a place where sustainable innovation, philosophy, enterprise and pedagogy fuses into art. But that’s just half the story; while realizing her project, Linda engages a number of local entrepreneurs, job seekers, trainees and craftspeople in Gnesta.
And so, it made a lot of sense to launch the premiere right here. We set the date to Sunday, November 20th… and, to really make a statement, we decided to have two screenings, each followed by a panel discussion; the first one on Cultivating Sustainability by Enterprise, and the second on Cultivating Sustainability by Art. From the day the idea arose, we had little more than three weeks to realize the project. And we did it!
Here’s a few photos from the double event – the first screening at local cinema Elektron, featuring Linda and Ronnit together with councillor Johan Rocklind (municipality of Gnesta), Daniel Lundqvist (NAV Sweden), Gustav Edman (Fabel Kommunikation) and Emilia Rekestad (REALS), moderated by cultural advisor Carina Nilsson (municipality of Gnesta); and the second one at Långsjö teater matching the artists with Magdi Beky Winnerstam (artistic director at Långsjö teater), Anna Emmelin (Albaeco), artist and curator Paula von Seth, and cultural advisor Carina Nilsson (here representing the municipality), with myself moderating…
All event photos by Artur Kowalski. And many, many thanks to everyone involved!
Cultivating Sustainability by Enterprise; panel discussion at cinema Elektron.
Local contributors and participants in True Intention documentary – on stage at Elektron!
Cultivating Sustainability by Art; panel discussion at Långsjö Teater.
Good collaborations are truly nourishing. Which was my good luck, by the way… because on the very next day (hardly having slept), I plunged into another workshop at Södertälje konsthall. Once more, I had the pleasure to team up with Sarah Guarino Florén – gracefully improvising together, on the firm ground of embodied knowledge. This week, our coworkers were fifth-graders and the workshop theme was Words and Images. We put forward the task of re-inventing language – without letters! – and gathered inspiration from emojis, roadsigns, Chinese characters and Bliss symbols… and Rudyard Kipling’s story How the First Letter Was Written. The response was immediate; not one single kid sidestepped the challenge. Through the week, we read dozens and dozens of inventive messages about pets and Christmas wishes, vacation trips, parents fleeing from war zones, love for family and friends and a mother falling ill… Their creativity was impressive, but even more so was the sincereness; both in writing, and in reading each others’ scripts.
Words and Images workshop – lunch break, tracks remaining; photo HHW.
In all of this, I did find some time for painting and a project of my own; but that’s quite another story…
Helena Hildur W. 