The Absence
For a long time I longed for other, bigger places. Away from the countryside, from neighbors who watched you grow up and snowy winters. I longed for anonymity and availability. In the summer of 2023 I spent two months in my childhood home because I was on sick leave after becoming burnt out. Something happened in me during that time: a shift. A shift that I’ve felt coming for years; a longing home and a longing to the northern parts of Sweden where I grew up.
In my examwork I have embodied the search, of my nowadays bigger need for silence, rest and safety. A search that I know will take its time.
The motifs of my village are mixed with motifs of the northern parts of Sweden to create diffuse black and white collages. They are woven in a thicker wool to create a warm, heavy, protecting and compact surface. I have researched how a two colored warp together with double weave bindings can together make completely black or white spheres and a grayscale in between. A grayscale almost makes the motifs dissolve if you’re standing more closely and becomes clearer when you take a few steps back. You can see the material and the bindings close up. When you are further away you can almost glimpse the trees by the lake, the blue mountains which melts into the blue ocean or a country road during a snowstorm. All of these places unravels only to be mixed together into new landscapes, or should I say the memories of them.
