Malin Pettersson Öberg

2009, 12 textile banners, 150 x 210 cm, grey textile paint

Korrespondenser (Correspondences) is a site specific installation developed for the group exhibition and pedagogical project Eternal Return in Falun, where young artists and cultural producers from the region were invited to return and show what they are working with a few years later. The project, curated by Kajsa Pontén and hosted by the cultural association and exhibition space Magasinet, was a collaboration with the Falun municipality and many schools in the area, that took place during one week in October 2009. It was visited by 3000 secondary- and highschool students and approximately 500 other visitors, who also took part in lectures and workshops held by the participants.

Korrespondenser consists of twelve textile banners, six placed indoors and six outdoors (facing the railway station), that feature quotes from love letters written by Selma Lagerlöf to her friend and mistress, Sophie Elkan, 1894-1904. Perhaps evoking the idea of sheets of paper or linen –in books or in beds– my choice of format and material for this piece was to add a sense of intimacy to the public space, particularly the specific location of Magasinet which is situated just next to Falun’s railway station. Also, to enable a link to (a period in) Falun’s history when the city might have played a more significant role (culturally and academically) than it does today: Attracting, for instance, writers like Selma Lagerlöf, who spent forty years of her life in Falun (an intriguing legacy for the city to explore further). One purpose of the work was also to evoke aspects of distance, longing, displacement and belonging, so closely tied to various forms of traveling, communication and correspondence, and to the human existence. To highlight the need of continuously interrogating and reconsidering existing orders and points of view, for example in relation to gender, class and belonging.