Photo of my grandparents and their friends. Photographer unknown.
A Still Life Full Of Surprises
2020 - 2021
“places are congealed scenes for remembered contents; and as such they serve to situate what we remember.” (Casey, Remembering, 2000, 401)
It all began with a photograph. Reminding me of a certain time and of certain people. Of a certain place.
Föra Socken, Öland. Returning to this place annually for as long as memory serves, I find solace in the enduring indifference of its landscape to the flux of my own life. There is a quiet reassurance in knowing that, even in my absence, the waves persist in their relentless sculpting of the stones, and the wind continues its unyielding assault on the sparse trees that have managed to root themselves here. These processes are perpetual, evoking both a sense of history and of timelessness. They embody an unbroken continuity, a dialogue that transcends the individual and reflects the enduring connection between generations.
What started out as an investigation of place and memory—how our memory of places shapes us and the significance of places in the formation of our memories—soon came to include questions about timelessness, immutability, and our own transience and fleeting nature.
All photos taken by me, unless otherwise stated.
Left: The Land Survey's map of Föra Socken. Right: Photo of fossils in limestone.
The limestone quarry of Lofta, Öland.
Cast stones arranged as cairns similar to those found at site.
The project was exhibited as an installation integrating video, sound, sculpture, and photography to create an immersive, multi-sensory experience.
Video: Underwater footage showing waves causing stones to tumble on the seabed, gradually eroding them into a polished, smooth form.
Sound: Field recordings captured at site interwoven with vocal recordings of my children.
Sculpture: Cast stones containing fossils, arranged as cairns and in repeating patterns served as representations of memories and their anchoring to specific locations, while also connecting to research on "deep time" and provoking reflections on the brevity of both our own lives and humanity’s existence on Earth.
Photo: Photo book including both documentation of the area and of fossils in limestone collected from the site, as well as arranged portraits of my children building cairns with the stones
Cast stones, repeating pattern.
Throughout the project, repetition and indexing run as a unifying thread. Beyond what I aim to convey to the viewer, the process itself has held personal significance, deeply intertwined with the themes I am exploring. Casting nearly 200 stones has complemented my childhood memories of fossil collecting with the physical muscle memory of mixing plaster and handling molds.
The photo book aimed to enhance the indexing and sense of repetition as well as reflect up the connection between generations. In a staged and documented act of play, the work explores materiality and humanity's innate need to leave a mark on the world. At the same time, the contrast between my children and the stones, which are millions of years old, is intended to amplify the passing of time. By involving my children in the process, we have together created shared memories linked to the very memories and places that my work seeks to investigate.
A video piece, accompanied by a soundscape, speaks to themes of silence and stillness, the relativity of time, and how places simultaneously change and remain constant despite our absence.
The auditory component consists of two distinct soundscapes, played simultaneously from opposite sides of the gallery. Both soundscapes loop independently and are intentionally out of sync, producing a continually evolving auditory environment within the space.
The source material for the soundscapes is derived from a combination of field recordings and vocal recordings of my children. The field recordings were captured at the site where the original stones were collected and where the accompanying video was filmed. These recordings were pitch-shifted and time-stretched to evoke a more dreamlike and ethereal atmosphere. The voices of my children were digitally processed, fragmented, and mapped onto a keyboard, enabling me to compose intuitive melodies that emerged spontaneously. By incorporating my children’s voices in this manner, their presence is rendered tangible within the gallery space, extending beyond the confines of the photo book. In the video above, only one of the audio loops can be heard.
