Nyland
2003, serie of five collages, mixed media, 50x40x1.5cm, exhibition with Kira Carpelan and Per Nyström, Galleri Konstfack/Stockholm
This collage series, made up of wallpaper and photographs mounted on mdf board, was an attempt to portray my grandparents’ countryside home in the north of Sweden in a personal but unsentimental way: by observing, documenting and putting together details of furniture, wallpaper, fabric and paintings, using authentic pieces of wallpaper that my grandmother gave me. Characterized by a touching and inventive ”do-it-yourself” architecture and decoration, the houses’ myriad of small rooms and strange old furniture and objects always fascinated me as a child. It was like a totally different universe: nothing in it had less than thirty years of age, and the house had absolutely nothing in common with me and my parents’ house. (I remember for example that me and my brother could not stop playing with a small wooden guillotine when we were there, which actually really hurt the fingers or the part of the body you chose to put inside.)
