Lose, Fumble, Find, 2022

Slideprojector, slides, prism, inkjet print, Polaroid, 2 stopmotion animation loop, scanned analogue film loop.

”Tappa, treva, hitta / Lose, fumble, find” (2022) is a multimedia installation and light installation. It consists of five different pieces, that also can be shown individually. The pieces share the same theme: memory and how we build our personas upon memories. Memory is rather uncertain and shaky. Our very own memories change and fade away and they get mixed up with other peoples memories. But we cling on to those certain memories that we hold dear and find important. When we lose those memories, we lose ourselves. In ”Lose, fumble find” I have been trying to understand memory disorder and how it affects a person. What happens inside your head when you try to capture an elusive memory? Repetitive gestures pervade the pieces. Repetition in the motion of the animations, the endless circle that keeps drawing and undrawing itself over and over again. The horse that goes back and forth with a speed that varies from normal to slow motion. The slide projector’s projection circles on the walls of the room, drawing a circle like the Ring animation. And then there is the film with the stairs, where the person is endlessly climbing up the stairs, never reaching what ever it is behind the door on the upper landing. The simple sets of motion reminded me of how we try to capture a memory that always seems to elude us. And when we are finally able to remember it, it is no longer the same. My grandfather died from Alzheimer’s before I got to know him. But he left me a box of slides. My father told me that my grandfather loved taking pictures. Through these pictures I look at his memories and the moments he chose to catch within a photo and cherish. He loved to take pictures of his wife, my grandmother who died before I was born. With these photos I try to build a connection with them, I try to imagine who they were and fill the blank spots in my own memories. My mother is slowly drifting away from me. She told me about her horse Piirto when I was a child, and now when I visit her in a nursing home, she shares those same memories with me. I’m afraid that soon that memory will disappear too. Thus, I wanted to put that memory on paper, even if it was with a series of clumsy and fumbling pencil strokes that could easily be erased, lest Piirto would be forgotten. There is something comforting about the fact that those good memories are still here, in photos, stories and animations. Even if they eventually will fade away from film and paper. Through this exhibition the light from the slide projector is also slowly fading the slides. And then there is this ongoing process of letting go of those memories. I feel the subject of memory disorder needs to be approached, because we fear it and we don’t understand it and we feel that we are helpless in front of it. I wanted to approach the theme with respect, because many of us have loved ones who are suffering from it. About the techniques of the five pieces individually: ”Piirto” (2022) hand drawn pencil stop motion animation ( 1:15 min, loop) projected inside the pedestal onto an empty Polaroid frame. The animation Polaroid is shown together with an actual Polaroid of an horse. The same Polaroid has been scanned and printed as a big inkjet print, (about 116cm x 100 cm) and it is shown on a nearby wall. The name of the big print is ”Häst” (2022). ”Ring” (2021) is another stop motion animation (1:20 min, loop), made with watercolors. The original hand painted animation has been diverted to a negative, so the watercolors are opposite the original colors. Animation is projected on a large size on a wall. ”Staircase” (2021) consists of altered found analogue negative 35mm film, converted to a positive 35mm film. Filmstrips were combined and scanned so that they became an ongoing 1:05 min loop projection on the wall. ”Kaleidoscope” (2022) is a light installation where I used a slide projector and old slides combined with new ones I took myself during this spring. The images are projected through a rotating prism. In front of the slide projector there are two empty paper sheets where the other one catches the projected picture all the time and the other one fails to do so. The slide projector rotates a selection of about 70 pictures and there are some empty slots between the picture slides. That creates dark pauses between the pictures.

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