{"id":19294,"date":"2025-06-12T20:57:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T18:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hdk-valand-graduation.se\/?p=19294"},"modified":"2025-06-12T20:57:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T18:57:46","slug":"marie-bergqvist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hdk-valand-graduation.se\/en\/marie-bergqvist\/","title":{"rendered":"Marie Bergqvist"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-8 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-xs-12″]
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Choir Leader: David Andersson,
\nLinda Mee Engberg,
\nEmma Neha Bobeck,
\nFanny Kimberly Dahlpil,
\nVeronica D'Arr\u00f2,
\nAndreas Pedro Hall\u00e9n,
\nSara Paulsson,
\nDaniel Gustavsson,
\nJohanna Rydholm,
\nMichael Lee S\u00f8renmo,
\nMarie Louise Dilmaya Bergqvist<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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SINGING TO THE DEAD
\nEssay – Audio Walk – Choir<\/h2>\n

Through three parts \u2013 an essay, an audio walk, and a choral performance \u2013 SINGING TO THE DEAD <\/i>explores the connection between transracial\/cultural adoption and the story of a whale calf that was killed in 1865, taxidermied, and placed in the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg.
\nThe death of nature as the rebirth of Man is the overarching Western narrative of separation that has long informed my artistic practice. This separation is described as a forgotten loss humanity still suffers from.<\/p>\n

As an adoptee, I too don\u2019t know what I\u2019ve forgotten\u2014only that there is a separation, a loss.<\/em><\/p>\n

In my essay \u201cBECOMING UNSETTLED: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION AND THE 1865 ASKIM WHALE CALF\u201d I center adoption and the whale calf within this narrative\u2014as two unique historical events shaped by forced, man-made transformations under colonial and patriarchal power.<\/p>\n

In collaboration with the Museum, the project included an April audio walk where I sang and spoke to the whale calf as a meditation on grief and lullaby, culminating in a collective ritual: a choral requiem on Walpurgis Night (April 30) performed by an adoptee choir singing two original songs, The Lake <\/i>and No Gods<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A requiem honors the dead and offers them rest. The killed whale calf\u2014his mouth opened on Valborg, silent yet drawing us to sing\u2014embodies the deep connection between adoption and death, reflected in adoptees’ high suicide rates and the colonial practice of relocating children from the Global South to the Global North. These structures bind us and singing together reflects this connection. Singing is also central to my work as it can access unconscious memories tied to adoption trauma, dismissed in Sweden<\/p>\n