Film shooting – Reading Glass – at The Glass Factory, June 2015
The shooting of image sequences for the video Att läsa glaset (Reading Glass) took place at the Glass Factory in Boda, Sweden, June 22nd – 23rd 2015. Malin Pettersson Öberg directs and writes the script for the film, which involves collaborations with Axel Diedrichs (Kalmar, camera and light) and Samuel Nicolas (Paris, sound). The film will be screened for the first time as part of the group exhibition Massa i rörelse (Moving Mass) at Kalmar konstmuseum 5th December 2015 – 28th February 2016. Most welcome!
The Glass Factory is one of Scandinavia’s largest glass collections and museums and the film Reading the Glass features close-ups of the shelves with stored glass pieces. Shot in one single tracking with a moving camera, Reading the Glass ”reads” the space through capturing a continuous flow of glass pieces, which later will be accompanied by a voice-over reading excerpts from literature, archives and conversations with individuals active within the glass region and industry.
The aim with the film Reading the Glass is to create an emotional understanding of the glass’ qualities, characteristics and significance, in general, for those living and working in the region, and for the image of Sweden nationally and internationally. Reflecting on glass as a material; its history, characteristics and association opportunities, such as display and exhibiting, visibility and transparency; also as a parallel to democracy and community building, the film relates to the movement of the material, the circular and ongoing, as well as its links with time, continuity and change. A special focus will be set on the glass objects in the collection of the Glass Factory, created by designers such as Monica Backström and Erik Höglund, in the ”revolutionary” and utopian spirit that we connect with the late 1960’s.
Reading the Glass is produced as part of the collaborative project Moving Mass, initiated in 2014 by the Swedish visual artist Ingela Johansson together with Åsa Jungnelius, Johanna Gustavsson Fürst, Eva Arnqvist, Caroline Mårtensson and Malin Pettersson Öberg. Moving Mass is carried out as an artistic enquiry with a point of departure in the material glass and the concept of Glasriket (The Kingdom of Crystal), the region embedded in the south of Sweden so well known for its arts and glass industry. With the project the artists are taking interest in the specific interrelation between art and industrial production, design and craftsmanship. Moving Mass asks questions of what it means to be human and deal with the loss of a job: the patrimony of the glass industry as well as the arriving crisis of outsourcing and dependency on industrial tourism. Through the project and the individual pieces, the artists will document and explore the heritage of the handicraft tradition and find new ways of archiving and engaging in activities of community building.
The project is conducted in collaboration with Kalmar Konstmuseum (Kalmar Museum of Art, Sweden), where an exhibition will take place between 6 Dec. 2015 – 28 Feb. 2016, Designarkivet (The Design Archive) Pukeberg, and the Glass Factory in Boda, where an exhibition is planned from August 2016. The project has received funding from the Swedish Arts Council and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, and is supported by Regionförbundet and Nybro Municipality. In 2016 a continuation of the project in the form of a symposium is planned.