Here and After

Page 1

Here and After



Introduction “Ah, here!” is a slang expression in Irish-English. The pronunciation of the phrase involves stretching out the vowel sounds, especially the last vowel, and sharpening the h’ and ’r sounds at the start and end of the phrase. “Ah, heeyaarr!” This is using what is called ‘deixis’—a word that carries a consistent semantic meaning but changes its denotation by virtue of the context of utterance: ‘here’ means this place I am speaking from, and it changes reference when I speak the word in a different place. The deixis, the demonstrative aspect of the word, is then used within the expression “Ah, heeyaarr!” to produce a stronger declarative force that seeks to define a boundary to the situation within which the utterance is produced. This is a very important expressive resource. It applies to situations where the speaker wants those hearing this expression to come to attention and to register some important limit within the common situation that speaker and listener are both inhabiting together. For example, when in a process of negotiation about the price of something, say, haggling in a market, if one of the speakers states: “Ah, heeyaaar! C’mon now. Get a grip.” What they are asserting is that the terms of the negotiation have become unacceptable, strange and outlandish. The phrasing then means something like: “Listen and attend to this situation we are both in together. Come back from the extreme position you are adopting. Take hold of the reality of this situation we share together.” There is a spatial and temporal declaration enacted in the expression that come into this situation we inhabit, come here and now, and be with me here and now, in the limits that pertain to this situation. It is an attempt to invoke a norm, without


specifying the norm, simply indicating that something has departed too extremely from what is acceptable in the situation. When used by an accomplished rhetorical player, the summons—“Ah, heeyaarr!” can have a powerful effect in interrupting the development of a given situation so as to reset the terms. For example, the phrase “Ah, heeyar! What are you like?” can have a powerful impact, can bring another speaker to an abrupt halt, and create quite strong flows of affect. This might be used by a third person wishing to interrupt a conflict between two people and to redirect the energies of the situation into another flow or configuration: “Ah, heeyar! What are you both after?” The word ‘after’ has the basic meaning of following upon, coming next in sequence, or coming next in time. “To be after” is an English idiom meaning “to want” or “to be looking for” or “to be seeking” or “to have a hunger for”. To ask “what are you after?” is to enquire into the desire of the person that you speak to: “What do you want?” “What is that you are following upon, chasing, pursuing, seeking, hungering for?” One can ask for example “What are you after here?” and mean by this “what is it within this situation that you want to emerge?” or “what do you want this situation to become?” or “what is your want?” “Here and after”, is not hereafter; it is not futurity, deferral, mere ambition. “Here and after”, is a summons to be in this place, to be in this time, to join in a common horizon of desires that follow upon each other. “Here and after” is a summons to consider an obligation to the common world and to what is wanted of it. It is the outlandish demand to come into the presence of our own hungers and the many hungers of those in this place around us. But you can say to me, I am, after all, mistaken. You can say: “Ah, heeyaarr …!” Mick Wilson Head of Department Valand Academy

4  Introduction


3-4................................................... Introduction 6-7............................................. Matilda Enegren 8-9........................................Flemming Ove Bech 10-11.............................................. Britt Anderson 12-13...................................... Emelie Sjunnesson 14-15...........................................Peter Kädergård 16-17...................................... Bergthor Morthens 18-19.............................................. Laura Hatfield 20-21........................................... Mourl Ferryman 22-23........................................... Marie Helgesen 24-25.....................................Maria Gordana Belić 26-27.......................................... Andrei Venghiac 28-29..................................... Kanchan Burathoki 30-31.....................................Jonas Esteban Isfält 32-33.............................................. Alanna Lynch 34-35............................................... Amanda Hart 36-37..................................... Tobias Kiel Lauesen 38-39............................................. Martin Hultén 40-41...................................Azadeh Esmaili Zaghi 42-43............................................. Stefan Jensen 44-45.................................... Hannah MacFarlane 46-47...................................... Johanna Arvidsson 48-49.............................................. Simon Rydén 50-63..... A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni 64-65................................................Biographies 66........................................................ Colophon


Above Self-portrait II, 2015 Top centre Installation view at Valand ˘15 Top left Self-portrait III, 2015 Bottom left Self-portrait I, 2015 Bottom centre Clustered Adolescence #2, 2015 Right Clustered Adolescence #3, 2015

6  Matilda Enegren



Honeycomb, left (21oz Indigo Rope Dyed Japanese Raw Selvedge Denim. Six months wear. One soak, one wash), 2015 Chromogenic print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper

8  Flemming Ove Bech



The Weight In Your Hands, 2015 Performance and installation view at Valand ˘15

10  Britt Anderson


The sticky paste of water and flour clings to my skin, cracking as it dries, pulling sharply on my hair. It seems my fingertips are constantly covered in the gummy paste. My hands move mechanically down the strips of paper, removing the weight of excess paste. I don’t think about what I’m doing anymore—every action is automatic. I can’t stand looking at this image. A woman’s legs dangle lifelessly from the trunk of a car, her feet adorned with a pair of high heel pumps. I guess it’s the shoes that are supposed to catch my attention, but I can’t seem to pull my eyes away from the legs hanging troublingly from the car. Who thought selling shoes on the feet of a supposed-to-be dead woman was a good idea? Fashion. I look forward to trampling this image into the floor. Reading her words, my stomach turns. I can’t imagine the reality of the horror she survived. So young. I leave my work to take a walk and try to shake the terrible images from my mind, but her words follow me. I know what I’m doing, he said. The sexualization and objectification of girls and women within mainstream media is pervasive. Through performance and installation I work to address how the objectification and violent hypersexualization of the female body in the media contributes to the societal acceptance and perpetuation of rape culture. My work asserts that the sexualization of young girls, as well as depictions of violence against girls and women, has a direct impact on attitudes toward violence and sexual harassment.


Medan vi lever…/While we live…, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15

12  Emelie Sjunnesson


They say that they have watched me all my life, that I am bound to this place, that something is missing when I am not here. One of them has always been by my brother’s side, touching him, desperate for communication. Going back to my early teenage years, the memories of the racing heart, the rituals. I hid the porcelain doll in the closet because she was breathing at night, looked repeatedly out the window into the pitch black darkness where the dog stood looking back at me and I knew that something was living under my bed, waiting for me to fall asleep. I saw my world collapse every night, the house burned to the ground and I wished that all the kitchen knives were locked in their drawer. Were they close then, when the fear of losing the grip of reality was at its peak? The maid maintains a protecting veil over this place but the curse screws up the drain pipes. In this house men have decided to leave this world, children and animals suddenly stop and stare into thin air and I cannot breathe at night. But this is the place that I miss. Here the sky seems to go on forever and every smell triggers the sense of belonging. Nothing can be proven, everything is feelings and they cannot be trusted, they are not evidence. But I am not looking for evidence. I seek the traces, the traces I can find in the physical present and in fragile memories.


A Source of Uncertainty, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15

14  Peter Kädergård


I am constructing machines out of found and discarded consumer products. These objects are reassembled to form fragile systems that consist of and use noise as a generator for creativity. These machines often consist of different parts, one bigger and some smaller systems that communicate with each other through a coded language, Boolean logic. The noise within these systems will disturb the communication and the receiver will have trouble interpreting the information. This procedure leads to a seemingly random behaviour, and it can be seen as if the machine has a free will. Communication is based on probability, that is how much noise and error it can contain without loosing meaning. To have a meaningful communication we have to reduce the possibilities of misunderstanding. To get rid of misunderstandings we can limit the information being sent out. But that also leads to less being said. I see my machines both as a celebration of technology and as a reminder of how dependent we are of it. As there seem to be no end to our technological development it's easy for me as a consumer to consider what is happening inside my computer, cell phone, etc. as something magical. This creates a gap between the users and the producers of technology. Logical reasoning, and especially Boolean logic, is so integrated into our technology and is such an important tool in developing different kinds of systems. If we lose this ability to reason we lose our distance to technology, we start seeing it as something we can't do without. A solution to this might be to learn how to do it yourself. The Internet is full of information. Use of this information leads to emancipation and empowerment. If information is free, power is more democratised. I think it's important to remind us all of Boolean logic, to show what it can do. I want to show that with even the stuff you normally throw away and some simple logical reasoning you can assemble your own entertainment system.


Left There’s no such thing as society, 2015 Watercolour, acrylic, oil and enamel paint on paper mounted to board Right When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat, 2015 Watercolour, acrylic, oil and enamel paint on paper mounted to board

16  Bergthor Morthens



Top left Laura Hatfield Cathedral, 2015 Oil pastel painting on paper Centre Photos from Ken Bell of Lil’Bill the cactus from Whose Museum Bottom right Dr. Storey and Ken Bell in front of Aisha Davidson’s painting with the cactus, 2010

18  Laura Hatfield



Masque of Blackness, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15

20  Mourl Ferryman


Gone to the Here After At this point in time I am acutely aware of the mortality of those closest to me, coupled with the fact that in my family “gone to the hereafter” is a polite way of saying someone has died, the questions of “what am I doing here” and “what will I do after” hold profound significance for me. I have begun to really question my motivations. Is my art practice a diversion to escape awful truths and dire consequences, a way to avoid life? In working my way into, through but not yet out of this ‘existential crisis’ I begin to understand the essentiality of my art practice, that without art I am unable to make sense of the world and more specifically of my life, practicing art has become a way of being in the world. Fundamentally this is what I am doing ‘here’ in Gothenburg at Valand Academy, the reasoning behind a habitual cutting of bits of paper and moving them around. Art is my means to deconstruct realities and reconstruct my own imaginaries or maybe vice versa. I have not given much thought to what will happen immediately after I complete my Masters and return to the UK but for the more distant future I am inspired by an influential figure in Caribbean thought and cultural commentary the writer, poet and literary critic Édouard Glissant who wrote that “…imagination changes mentalities no matter how long it goes about it…” (Poetics of Relation, 1997, p 183). This is my hope and my dream, let this be what comes ‘after’.


22  Marie Helgesen


Here You will immediately assume that it is pitch dark, but after letting your eyes adjust to the dark you notice light leaks The light leaks create another room, a room that is grey and hard to decipher as anything else than shadows in a grey scale. It feels like you can’t breathe. The room becomes dark. Your eyes will no longer adjust to the dark because there are no sources of light anywhere. The feeling of no light resembles the feeling of no air. Claustrophobic. You are comfortable in the dark because there is only you. You are uncomfortable in the dark because there is only you. After The light sensitive paper reacts to the controlled amount of light you are allowing to hit the paper. The paper is casting shadows on itself and makes photograms of its own physical appearance. Tension between light and dark. Inside and outside.

Behind Your Eye, 2014-2015 Chromogenic print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper


Competitive is Life/When you can’t perform anymore. (The night we compared our flicker-frequency.) 2015

Women should come here, alone. She said: They even put the ducks in prison. This house is a montage. They all love me, they only say hello to me. His sister lived there. The guy who broke your tooth? I don’t recognize the houses anymore. I fell asleep on the grass. This is my friend’s two houses. Once she overheard something that I wanted. I wanted it, she took it. This is the place where they made shoes. Why should I fear anybody now.

24  Maria Gordana Belić


Me, I never go. Wait wait, she has lipstick. Nobody has lipstick. Don’t. I’m not well, you know that. Didn’t you eat. Those pills. That’s the time my dear. That is the day. Why did you do that, don’t you know how cold it is. Don’t look at me, I’m struggling. I’ll sit next to you. You can have this; it will last for five months. I have a glass. You see. Got another sister, she told me. I got up at half twelve. She woke up before me. On the way there, on the boat, right before she went to take a photo of the best view, she said that you couldn’t make decisions without emotions. Here I keep the remote close so I can shut the TV off before he comes home. But your shoes were in the same position as when I left. He said. The burden of proof. Afterwards he came home with a steel wagon, 180x50cm, on wheels. He built it to fit the moving boxes. Since she wouldn’t move, like this I could move twelve boxes on my own. Your future competitive self could travel more lightly. She said: It makes no sense to dip your toe in the water to feel how cold it is. It will always be too cold. The same with fingers she said. And she was right. By the time my shoulders were in the water my feet were aching. I had to put on sneakers to continue. Of buoyant women in fluxus trying to keep within the frame. Here and after.


From Memory Alone, 2014-2015 B/W Archival Pigment Print mounted on Dilite Aluminium Composite Sheet

26  Andrei Venghiac


From Memory Alone explores the view of the romantic tragic hero isolated in nature in his pointless attempts towards action as his quest for finding the sublime. The anonymity and uncertainty that starts with the vagueness of the figure, the haziness of the surroundings and shifts to the relations between the character and his absurd action within the gaze of the camera, puts into question the premise of his actions. The difference between appearance and reality and between expectation and realisation, remains the struggle of his experience. Set in the anonymous forest, the mise en scène, in its wilderness and harmonious balance, embodies the evocation of the sublime; whilst the idea of man imitating nature, nature imitating man or rather man versus nature subsists in the struggle against fate.

From Memory Alone, 2014-2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15


Am I following the thought, the thread or the needle? 2013-ongoing

28  Kanchan Burathoki


Here was when we weren’t like strangers—bhai and I. Here was when we could’ve stopped ourselves from drifting so far apart. Here was when the house felt big, mysterious and filled with endless surprises. Here was when we fought over the remote control. Here was when we tried to make our own newspaper kites. Here was when we found joy in counting the number of red cars whizzing past us. Here existed amongst us then. * After here had left, things became quiet. I went on folding napkins and setting the tables like I always did but things were never quite the same again. There was this uneasiness in the air, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I became increasingly jittery and broke two wine glasses on the same day. “Here, take these,” I say and hand you a bunch of words that are overflowing from my arms. “I can’t hold onto them anymore. They overwhelm me. They once belonged to you anyway. You must take them back now.” Here was two days ago. * Here was when the water in kancha’s well brimmed to the top and tasted as sweet as dew drops on the grass blades of maili’s garden. Here was when fresh air filled our lungs and we slept to the sound of waterfall. Here was when rivers had not been conquered by sewage drains. Here was when there were in this valley more gods and temples than humans. Here was when Ason felt like an endless maze of alleys and secrets. Here was when I didn’t have mixed feelings for Kathmandu. Here could have been here. * I wish I could record my thoughts so that I wouldn’t have to struggle afterwards, to write what I had thought about in the first place.


Above Phocus, 2014 Right Topographies, I, 2014 Below Clamp, 2015

30  Jonas Esteban Isfält


Today’s image-makers, deeply immersed in visual culture, are inherently related to discussion on the validity and indexicality in images, whether they be images produced by ourselves or by someone else. It is arguably the oldest discussion in, at least, the photographic area. Or maybe it is no longer a discussion at all, because who can today, at the start of the 21st century, claim any image to be absolutely true? Yet, today, there seems to be a kind of Freudian slip back to believing, or at least wanting to believe, in a certain indisputable set of ideas or systems. Perhaps because, in this point in history, when the old systems are starting to fail, there is a need to cling to something, anything. Even though we know in our heart of hearts that what we cling to is something we as rational beings understand as being just fluff. Because if one cannot believe in anything then one must start to ask oneself questions and try to formulate one’s own ideas, and man, that is such hard work! My work focuses on all the filters, raster and lenses that all forms of communication travel through. The instruments we use to record and project images, class, culture, language or even the lenses that makes up our eyes. The overarching concept of my work is an experiment of sorts in trying not to add yet another scientific certainty to the discussion of concepts of understanding, ideology and truth(s).


32  Alanna Lynch


Above Concealed and Contained, 2009-ongoing Performance at Valand ˘15 Left Contagious Affections, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15

I have been collecting my own hair as it falls from my head, a process started in 2009. I have spun this hair to make a yarn and began to crochet this masklike form with which I plan to cover my entire body. I have been collecting large amounts of blond hair from the garbage here in Sweden. Twined together in this rope, the hair should be strong enough to hold 1600 pounds. I have used this rope to suspend a large glass jar of my urine.


Left Freja – Göteborg, Sweden, 2015 Right Liam – Göteborg, Sweden, 2015

34  Amanda Hart



36  Tobias Kiel Lauesen


Now & Then What if there were no here and after, but only now and then? We will never be able to adjust the future or to alter it. We know what we have now and here and we know about the past, then. But what about after? What is after? After what? After. We can have expectations, we can dream of a better future but we can never predict it. Every Monday is a Monday, yes. But the content of every Monday is different even though everything went wrong that Monday and the same the Monday after, it will still be something different, but we can still expect[…] Mondays to be Mondays. We repeat, we reflect upon each other, and we expect. Doing the same thing, day after day, we start to think and to believe we can predict our future, our life, but we can’t, because when we start to predict, everything stops. And becomes unpredictable. We are not machines. We are living beings. We rot. We decay. We disappear. We live. We think and we reflect, reflect on the past and consolidate it into the future, and expectations for the future is now born. Expectations for the future. That is not predictions but expectations, and expectations are reflections from the past, the then, projected into the future, the after, outlived in the now. A better future, a better after, is based on a worse past. So what is the future bringing us? We can only guess and hope, but we can only hope because we know better, know what we don’t want to hope for. Let the fright stay at home and the pain under your toe swim away. We only repeat what others did but we do it better.

Movements Matter, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15


Untitled (Light Pollution) III, 2015 Oil paint on acrylic glass Detail from painting

38  Martin HultĂŠn


The exhibition NGC 6514 explores duality in the form of the relationship between top and bottom, examining ways of seeing from the viewpoint of how extremes can relate. Working under the title Light Pollution, the series is an attempt at placing the idea of a science investigation into a temporal, studio-based framework, chiselling away, the marks gradually disfiguring the subject into memory like the rings of a tree. Thinking of the gradient light as a kind of medium, it becomes an image as transformation, where one thing turns into another.

NGC 6514, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15


How much one dollar costs today, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15 and stills from single-channel video

40  Azadeh Esmaili Zaghi


Following the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979, Iranians have experienced various types of sanctions, divestment and boycotts. Over the years of the post-revolution era and during the eight-year war with Iraq, sanctions have seriously impacted on Iran's economy. While the immaterial market and economy is still able to traverse territories and allowed to move freely, Iranians face the impact of the limits imposed by divestment, such as visa restrictions. The latest series of sanctions by the UN Security Council on the Islamic Republic of Iran, has affected Iranians politically, socially and economically in a multi-faceted manner. The major difference between the current sanction imposed by the UN and those imposed during the war is how they impact on the Iranian economy through multiple channels. Perhaps most significant is exchange rate volatility. How much the dollar costs today is becoming an everyday subject of Iranian peoples’ lives since the social, economical and political conditions of people are changing with the dollar. The impact of miscommunication and non-democratic dialogue between the authorities on both sides is considerable. “How much one dollar costs today” is the shared title of a project consisting of objects, performance, video and installation examining how actions such as sanctions and boycotts, which are considered as “non-violent” political struggle, convert into violent struggles with respect to the impact of the actions on the citizens, not only the authorities. I melted two Iranian gold coins together to transform them into a razor sharp object, symbolising the severity of communication and economic negotiation between the USA and Iran. I place the razor between my lips and count the increase in the price of the dollar from 71 Iranian Rial per Dollar in 1979 to 27 564 Iranian Rial per Dollar now—35 years of and since the revolution. Bread and politics are closely linked in Iran. Supplying cheap bread has been a key principle of government policy for decades to ensure social stability. Bread has been the cheapest as well as most important food item in Iranian diets. I baked 20-kilos of flour into Iranian Nan, from which I then cut 4 650 bread coins. The number being current cost of bread, which had been inflated 464 percent since 1979.


Untitled, 2015 Silver gelatin prints Made in collaboration with Hannah MacFarlane

42  Stefan Jensen


There is a flicker in-between light pulses, waves bending around corners, converging in shadow areas continuing, colliding, organising and revealing; an unfocused journey to nowhere, searching for a cavity to settle in. Forcing invisible acts and letting go a hint of assumption. Particles not moving in a straight line but opening up to a form familiar for the dust residing in tensioned muscle fibres. A dark massif reverberates in the echo of a lost shape; capillaries tremble at the contact, generating movement in concealed mountains and in the oscillation lies a suggestion of a possible understanding.


44  Hannah MacFarlane


Pending Fall I & II, 2015 Microscope, silver fulminate coated stones, projector Made in collaboration with Stefan Jensen


The Hidden Face of Narcissus, 2015 Installation view at Valand ˘15

46  Johanna Arvidsson


I am interested in what we use everyday as envelopes for our bodies during the nightly acts of sleeping and dreaming. I see the bed sheet so closely connected to the body that for me it becomes a metaphor for the body itself. We leave our body imprints on them and traces of our body fluids after every night. It is also on the bed sheet where we cease to exist if we die because of old age or sickness and in many cultures they have a special role in burial rituals. It is all these aspects that have created a fascination for me about this object and made the cloth into a study object of my artistic work.


View from the lighthouse in Raufarhöfn, 2015 Inkjet on newsprint

48  Simon Rydén


Photography gives me a space to observe the presence of people and how we shape our behaviour within social structures. I’m not interested in photographic representation of these moments; this is merely what photography makes me see. I do not trust the photograph to carry these tender moments of presence. I believe the conditions of this space are inherent to the photograph itself, carrying its own consciousness, and therefore should be looked at for its own presence. It is not enough—either in the photographic moment or in the meeting of the photograph—to observe. By shifting focus from what’s visually represented in the photograph I want to enable the photograph to become a participant by investigating the photograph as its own body, occupying space within the same social structures as we do. I approach the photograph with a curiosity about its limitations and with a constant shift in the narrative perspective; where the space between my presence/absence, as the photographer, to the photographic object is one of the key components.


Valand alumni Gunwor NordstrĂśm and Sandra Ikse in front of the loom, 1973.

50  A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni


A Past as Seen from Here In early spring an open call was extended to Valand alumni to contribute reflections and images from their time at the Academy. We requested and received many generous and illuminating contributions, a selection of which are presented on the following pages. Perhaps the most meaningful encounter for us as editors was a visit with Gunwor NordstrÜm, a textile artist and graduate from the 1970s who welcomed us into her home. She invited us to see her studio upstairs where she told us stories about her work, past and upcoming. With a glass of wine we continued this special evening in her kitchen with a slideshow full of memories. When she studied at Valand you had to travel on a ferry to get to the school on Lindholmen. The port was very active at the time and was an inspiration. Visiting artists sometimes brought their original paintings to their talks instead of photos or slides. Classes were lively, political and urgent while friendships were formed that last to this day. Gunwor and her friend and fellow alumni, Sandra Ikse coupled raising young children with art making. Together they planned exhibitions that dealt with the politics of their lived experience, and a feminist textile movement emerged with their work. At the end of our visit we met Gunwor’s neighbour Becke Hinnerson, an alumni from the 1960s who also shared stories and showed us a salon style hang of artwork in his home, featuring many works by Valand alumni at that time. It is clear to us that these days will not be soon forgotten. On this 150th anniversary and in this moment of moving forward through rapid changes, we wondered where is Valand heading, what has it been and who has been here before us? We hope you will find us one day too, Valand'65.

Britt Anderson, Maria Gordana Belić, Laura Hatfield and Emelie Sjunnesson Editors of Here and After


Gunwor Nordström Sandra Ikse, Ragnar Schmid, Lisette Wahlström, Stefan Gylling, Gunwor Nordström (with her back to the camera) and Åke Nordström (behind the camera).

Gunwor Nordström Barbro Reyman showing her paintings in discussion with the students, 1970-71.

Bengt-Olof Johansson A photo from my studio in 1987. I think it's taken by Roland Borén, at the time a fellow student, nowadays an artist still active in the art scene in Göteborg.

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Elin Wikström

Notes from Art School Kortedala Canyon, April 2015 Östra Grevie, Malmö 1984-86: Learning to stretch a canvas. Painting and Printmaking. Placing a copper plate on the rails and waiting for the train. Stealing Manifesto of Surrealism from the library. Regret. Having my first group show. Knowing a Tristan Tzara and André Breton dialogue by heart and reciting it together with a friend on the bus, pub etc. Resist stealing the exhibition catalogue Vanishing Point with works by Bochner, Doyle, Graham, Hesse, LeWitt, Smithson, Vollmer. Regret. Doing my first performance. Valand, Göteborg (1987-92). Learning to make a plaster mould. Drawing in the dark at a night excursion as part of a workshop with a Polish guest teacher. Having my first solo show. Comment from a visitor: Nice sculpture, I associate it with a soap dish that my grandmother had. Not my intention… Taking part of marathon screenings of video art at Frölunda Kulturhus. Running underground clubs. Getting the worst review ever in the student gallery’s history. Teachers: Told you so! You should have waited a year or two. Fourth year, sculpture department: Trying to become a bear. In absence of theory studies, starting a girls only reading circle. First book: Ebba Witt Brattström’s Julia Kristeva reader. Expanding the girl group activities with visits in each other’s studios. Showing work together. Making collaborative work. Fifth year, sculpture department: deciding not to add any more objects to the world. Just think and write, both semesters. Realising that the most incomprehensible lecture held in Danish was the best. Unforgettable guest teacher: the roots of sculpture are tombs and war monuments! Silence, eternal message, fixity, I thought. No, I want to work with alterability, chance, dialogue, encounters and norm breakages. Starting up an artist-run gallery. Handling media. Writing catalogue texts, ask somebody to write or write oneself. Doing my first intervention. Practise working on multiple projects simultaneously. Stop using the word stress or stressed. Learning to transform nervousness from a negative to positive sensation. Enjoying collegial exchange, growing life-long friendships.


Virgil Dejarv Walkthrough of transparent paintings with Cita “Zity” the dog, Lindholmen, September 1991. The project room at Valand School of Fine Art was a place where experiments in installation, video and painting were performed.

54  A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni


Bjรถrn Perborg Studios at Valand around 2000


Jerzy Kowalski September 1983. First year photography students (second group) presents a printing exercise for Pål-Nils Nilsson.

Jerzy Kowalski September 1982. Art and design course at School of Design and Crafts (HDK). Sculptural exercise. From the left: Anna Littorin (formerly Karemyr), Anna Porsmyr (the model), Björn Rantill with teacher Stig Albansson, and Richard Vincent.

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Ellen Synøve Holtskog

When you ask me about my studies in Photography at Akademin Valand, and what I remember the most, I find it impossible to avoid the memory of the final day of my studies: the 3rd of June 2005. I loved my studies in Gothenburg, spending years dedicated to the art of photography, and I remember especially the excitement about our last show at Göteborgs Konsthall. I showed seven black and white portraits of strongly religious people together with non-believers, and the clue was to look into their eyes without knowing who was who. Earlier that spring, I discussed the idea of this project with my older brother, and I felt great support. Actually, he was the one that taught me how to use a camera. He loved to travel, and showed me hundreds of slides from his trips that all made a big impact on me. The date of 3rd of June was for a long time marked in advance with a red circle in my calendar. It was supposed to be my last day at school, and in the evening I was invited to a special party together with my fellow students and my dear professor Annica Karlsson Rixon. Unfortunately the 3rd of June became something to remember not only for that reason. Two days earlier, I’ve got shocking news from home: My dear brother had disappeared! I went back home, and together with my family I tried to search for him, and call all his friends for information. It was the worst days of my life, and of course out of question to go back to Gothenburg. In the early evening of the 3rd of June 2005, when my classmates and teachers gathered together for the final party, the Police called. They just found my brother’s dead body in the mountains. Shortly after, I got a message on my phone from a fellow student: Congratulation Ellen! You just won Carl Larsson-stipendiet, a prize for the best student work at Göteborgs Konsthall!


“Can a body become a firewall?” So asks Independent Study course alumni and former teacher Matthew Rana, in his text A Cut Reel. Rana was commissioned to revisit an unfinished piece from his time as a student at Valand in 2010. This text anagrammatises American structuralist filmmaker Hollis Frampton’s text from 1968, A Lecture. Frampton’s text was performed as a pre-recorded reading by Canadian filmmaker, Michael Snow. It is our hope that a pre-recorded version of Rana’s text will be performed at another point in Valand Academy’s future. Britt Anderson, Maria Gordana Belić, Laura Hatfield and Emelie Sjunnesson Editors of Here and After

58  A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni


Matthew Rana A Cut Reel

there in the distortion riot a rascal connection a filmmaker's text cut word by word anagrammatised by a writer who wrote this formless preface rearranged an alphabet with only a reel a material intuition out of syntax in teleconferenced speech cabal became cobble diction wolfed eyes no homonyms of emus faraway reevaluated sensory overdoses history and flesh literary space seen in generic darkness from a shadowy grid here before the lens monotony thrives on heretical hill dadaist safety fell flat created entropy a drip went to the limits looked at the edge housed lame dramas drew fifty dots heart rewritten made stale because of the format listen: woe unto the esthetic fool how? whom? is it over? please turn out the lights suspended with us in a null space bringing fantasia before fiction more than a few jeers jokey omens artist-hating chance ironies and a pen

this unwise fruit chewed up arcane poet pinwheeled away who vacates neither sight nor body its gentle arc fused subsumed by metatarsals which do not move at all a featureless animal white like the infallible sundial it reads so to speak refracting the smooth absence adamant thing shone within a prism that glows beams subtle sight it can and does repeat a method we prefer to ideals we are agape staring at its flat limit confined space but we can never see how to recreate thought is only a white rectangle its presence noble perhaps as much as any particular thing more silent only less willing in a rush of unease trim to the lost sum in cheapened left norms glances and slyer routines no energies typing you a cavalcade of light is willows look I can be your most probable avalanche the red filter is not shut “don’t you enjoy writing?� solutions withdrawn elsewhere mirrors a pan to edit whitewash the referent


no longer chaotic alienate automatisms gems and merchantable books grainier loops anesthetic view vile forms torpor beauteous heartache pout like the book the props advance another glistening jeer prescribe reason balanced awareness and narrate a prose optic diss veejays playact as though it is a sacrifice a banal victory foregone to toil lost truth a poorer comfort uptight charade generated nothing at all “have we decided what we want?” maybe things are not so fatal if we gather this twisted myth devise ways of subtracting of removing one thing if we unreel from view our desire in a gentler arc bombards a deliberate shape a fascinating thing to hum all energy shift our whole attention perspectives vivify in it it may not change economic advantages woe flora and fauna with mere japes and masks have enfolded another writing the soil was gentle with naivete in its claws but pivoted toward nowhere like the ascendant macaw whose wealth seemed trumped muffled from within by heedless whims by egotism honey lace and feather sweeten the land perhaps not within this twist of fate born dumb to fully emote our inheritance far withdrawn we must forget our jewels twice now jotted down without purpose when lovers shift

60  A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni

limned pale with inner hue yellow hue held over the eye even my veins hue tell how it took jolts to seem alive leap snowblind into affect and bodies with limits await a fleeting shadow not pure nor visible we will surely find one will absorb its jump cuts see dissimilar throttle monitors we hold something not to invent a style wherein some understand the partial jumble such abstract null letters flown for the sake of the night like a fox with hens we might see only hate where all is reality or shear inside it feel faulty and fainthearted shiver these hardened echoes suppose no communication suppose that we are hapax legomena powerful forms like thinking nymph in our mouth simultaneously contrarian beast and bone we imperil with abstract focus is it a form of openness? too hopeful a pull? there is still time to furnish a humble fool with images of owls we learned long ago timbrel moth to keep the watch unwound we just want to hold the relationship heightening in swim of shore all of it to view that’s better by a different expenditure of reading less interested in recovering the text than with questioning the conditions here surfacing words into space New York City 1968 artifacts rewind the anagram’s laws but this reader is where we came in the projector is turned on the theaters are a mess


feature films washout lifeless boloney fluff matinee ghouls this is not our screen Avatar is unbearable as are all movies that try to wow us with newer effects atop rehashed sanitary plots or base truisms to tell this cinema is neither film nor the eleventh axiom of set theory, Zorn’s Lemma anathema to the movies filmmaking is structural is aware just like eyes that vacancy is doing something just as slothful abidance habitually becomes normal sight itself is learned “well then, I want to see less!” the alarm cry this thematic inseparable so that alphabetized folly brought cinema into focus the tyranny of time and the camera frame so that we view the metathesised typo as more than a mere quip it repeats the logic of its internal engine now with mechanical precision with the poetical loop sears anew the simple explanation the theorem reframes catastrophe Hollis Frampton’s film appears to have sympathy with speech sweet web hosting deals and scams offering payment from a Nigerian man faraway a troll on a web forum posts an agitated rant abuses aesthetes while why more explanation? is what you are cerebrate? it had me from home where capital keeps me I'm first on a message board however earthly where he has to beg our always agreeable management watched with a big fiery iris and it is often real for us but here I had a hehe behind even repackaged if plus the leeching bit-torrents

texts seeded in light torrent emits a rug-eye see the photo? what’s shown? machine vision scratch to hit his foot awhile turn away to here off in there? less pins so where we flick remove freeware not typo if there is too much here the I must thrust it high while we arouse its number format its digit like a cut who was merely flesh and bone who a wish net suits you AI motif not pathetic knowledge nor use but out of control its inhale is a thing like M get u thrown out with the bath ways much less freely with a structure we want less graph harvesters are the the hatchway for a push what are we emailing fish? hearing half-style alphabet upside down referent I snowstorm most log off thin the Internet egalitarian tool an efficient eyepiece how are we? determined he acerbates off my file “muah” more hi/low theft wry iconoclasm slows letters to a heavy crawl F A I L S fans with warped fantasies download hardcore scenes tutti-frutti pictures free porn videos anytime watch while millions of web memes accelerate to the Nth degree course through veins like viruses and


baby's body unacquainted with torso hands logs on a database of binary information ongoing aphasia “see more know less” your unlit map was approachable scrambled wild hymn face them now worse off thus light your apps ease real push the button bug “I am online all the time I accumulate thousands of pitiless files for free have dull fetishes iPhone cases with flags or shoes. I has a communicate oar.” Screen vagabondage while ejecting hardware a belief in free access information flow visibility not depiction a natural tribe of ambient users like cling to databanks together alone timing out roomfuls of users upload files to vivify the fragment shown out of frame dupe the film or delete it the epitome of uh… choice an eyes it each bore tweeting —laptopgurl, mrs. modem hyperlink_barbarian screenmirth jeepeye twenty two— IMO they E quite well a noisy distraction network souls update like software iterations or hear of the negation of semiotic regimes technological spheres recoded “we should recall what we once believed about mathematics” can a body become a firewall? a million files database of trademarked names that is what we have seen substituted a touchscreen interface for a Sony videotape the iPad is an apparatus

62  A Past as Seen from Here: Valand alumni

that irksome toy that hyped miasmatic media thing it keeps me integrated like an extension of my own flesh .mov .avi .mpfour our rectangle has an internal camera helping us inhabit avatars with phantoms shadowy double is a file still attached like a file blurs non-linear edits scrub timelines bed banal performances of technical filming ability of Hi-Res POV shots movies made with a laptop webcam stream reality splicing eyefuls small bits of anonymous stuff filming moist confessions about the search for self go further filmmaker than youtube or vimeo! “self expression was only an issue in the arts (or anywhere else) for a very brief time in history” some used footage as a tool for seeing techne or luminescence is that time over? can the serial work still nourish us like sunlight? Poetic Justice is on the web a film called Lemon gets ten thousand four hundred sixty nine hits online even the film about the scratch has seventy likes some of this was nonsense “please turn on the lights” FIN



Students graduating from MFA Fine Art 2015

Britt Anderson Born in Hemingford, Nebraska, USA 1989. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Johanna Arvidsson Born in Småland, Sweden 1983. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. annahoja@hotmail.com Maria Gordana Belić Born in Linköping, Sweden 1983. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. maria.belic@gmail.com Matilda Enegren Born in Vasa, Finland 1989. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. matildaenegren.com Azadeh Esmaili Zaghi Born in Theran, Iran 1981. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. azadehzaghi.com azadeh.zaghi@gmail.com Mourl Ferryman Born in Manchester, England. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. valand15.com/portfolio/mourl-ferryman info@mourlferryman.com Amanda Hart Born in Austin, Texas, USA 1981. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Laura Hatfield Born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada 1978. Works in Malmö, Sweden. Martin Hultén Born in Kristianstad, Sweden 1981. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. martinhulten.com

64  Biographies

Peter Kädergård Born in Helsingborg, Sweden 1973. Works in Gothenburg and Helsingborg, Sweden. peterkadergard@gmail.com Kanchan Burathoki Born in Kathmandu, Nepal 1985. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Tobias Kiel Lauesen Born in Gentofte, Denmark 1985. Works in Copenhagen, Denmark and Gothenburg, Sweden. cargocollective.com/tobiaskiel Alanna Lynch Born in Canada 1978. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. alannalynch.wordpress.com alanna.copland.lynch@gmail.com Bergthor Morthens Born in Reykjavik, Iceland 1979. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Emelie Sjunnesson Born in Källs Nöbbelöv, Sweden 1986. Works in Gothenburg and Helsingborg, Sweden. sjunnesson.emelie@gmail.com Andrei Venghiac Born in Bacau, Romania 1990. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. andreivenghiac.com


Students graduating from MFA Photography 2015

Valand Alumni included in this publication

Flemming Ove Bech Born in Aalborg, Denmark 1982. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. flemmingovebech.com lodretvandret.com

Virgil Dejarv Born in Helsingborg, Sweden 1962. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Graduated from Fine Art 1992.

Jonas Esteban Isfält Born in, 1974. Works in Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden. jonasisfalt.se Marie Helgesen Born in Oslo, Norway 1984. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. mariehelgesen.com mariehelgesen@gmail.com Stefan Jensen Born in Linköping, Sweden 1986. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. stefan.jensen@me.com Hannah MacFarlane Born in Bristol, England 1992. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. jensenmacfarlane@gmail.com Simon Rydén Born in Frillesås, Sweden 1985. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. simonryden.com

Ellen S. Holtskog Born in Bærum, Norway 1976. Works in Hosle, Norway. Graduated from Photography 2005. Bengt-Olof Johansson Born in Helsingborg, Sweden 1959. Works in Eketorp, Sweden. Graduated from Fine Art 1988. Jerzy Kowalski Born in Dzierżoniów, Poland 1948. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Graduated from Photography 1985. Gunwor Nordström Born in Sandhult, Sweden 1947. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Graduated from Fine Art 1975. Björn Perborg Born in Västerås, Sweden 1974. Works in Berlin, Germany and Orust, Sweden. Graduated from Fine Art 2003. Matthew Rana Born in Everett, WA, USA 1981. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Graduated from Independent Study 2011. Elin Wikström Born in Västerås, Sweden 1965. Works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Graduated from Fine Art 1992.


Here and After Valand Academy, 2015 Editors Britt Anderson, Maria Gordana Belić, Laura Hatfield and Emelie Sjunnesson Design Niklas Persson studio Print Göteborgstryckeriet Publisher University of Gothenburg Valand Academy Vasagatan 50 SE-40530 Gothenburg Legally responsible publisher Mick Wilson ISBN 978-91-981863-0-7 Acknowledgements With thanks to: Jason E. Bowman, Gunilla Burstedt, Mary Coble, Christina Dege, Virgil Dejarv, Henrik Hamboldt, Ellen Synøve Holtskog, BengtOlof Johansson, Jerzy Kowalski, Denise Mellion, Paulin Nande, Gunwor Nordström, Björn Perborg, Matthew Rana, Julia Tedroff, Elin Wikström, Mick Wilson, Niclas Östlind, the staff at Göteborgs Konsthall and all the participating students. Image credits Krister Alvarsson (p. 50), Ken Bell (p. 18), Åke Nordström (p. 52), Thomas Schön (pp. 6-7, 10-16, 18, 20-24, 27-28, 32-33, 36-37, 39, 40-41 and 4446), Alexa Kirsten Stroth (p. 18). All other images courtesy of the artists. Copyright No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in an edition of 300. www.valand15.com www.akademinvaland.gu.se © 2015 Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. All material courtesy of the artists and writers.



Valand Academy MFA 2015 Fine Art + Photography This publication was made possible by the generous support of Stiftelsen Fru Mary von Sydows, född Wijk, Donationsfond. Here and After brings together contributions from twenty-two artists graduating from the MFA Fine Art and MFA Photography Programmes at Valand Academy in 2015. The purpose of the publication is not just to document the current graduates’ work but also to connect our time with Valand’s past and present for future perspectives on the development of the Academy. Together we commemorate the 150th year anniversary of the Academy by inviting alumni to contribute reflections and images from their years at the school, including Elin Wikström, Gunwor Nordström, Jerzy Kowalski, among others. By special request, Matthew Rana revisits a text piece from his time as a student at the Academy, published here for the first time.


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