Linguring in the 1850's

Another Dickensian Christmas

There once was a Christmas, years and years ago, when I sat on a cutting table stitching bonnet after bonnet with my fingers aching. The first time I ever made Dickensian things was at the theatre for a production of A Christmas Carol and this year that will be half the inspiration for my next little window exhibition. The other half will be Cambridge it self.

It all started when one day I unexpectedly found my self locked out and I was drawn into the warmth of the Fitzwilliam museum and then had to leave very quickly so I wouldn't lose the inspiration that washed over me while I was watching French caricatures from the 1840's (and yes, that might just be one of the most pretensions things I have ever said, thanks for noticing.) Suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted to do next.

 

Now, although I'm very fond of creating where I stand, after a tiny bit of research I've noticed that the part of Cambridge where I now live didn't exist in the 1850's, where we lay our scene. My street did not come into existence until the 1880's which in other cases fit me perfectly but in this case means I'll have to find another street and other houses to copy. This is going to take a while...

So instead of starting there I did what I always do. Introducing, the Test Person! I'll be making little clay people to populate my Dickensian Cambridge street, smaller than I have ever made before, and this will be who I shape it all according to. 

After I had made him two more followed so now I have an elderly man, a middle aged woman and a small child. I think that covers enough human difference for now. Don't worry, they will eventually have bodies as well.

In the end I imagine it will become a shopping street, lit up and crowded. In more ways than one. But you never know what turns these things can take...

I will leave you for now with the wise words of the Muppets: "When the cold wind blows it chills you, chills you to the bone. But there's nothing in nature that freezes your heart like years of being alone."

the Good Feminist

"Being a feminist does not mean living as if post-patriarchy has already arrived, you can not live like that, being a feminist means acknowledging that the world is unequal and doing your part in working towards it not being so."

(Roughly translated and shortened from two of my favourite feminist podcasts. Swedish. The English ones must be hiding incredibly well!)

The good feminist is the woman (not girl) who makes all the right choices. She knows what to do. She hurts no one at the same time as she stands up for her self and all her sisters. She probably has short hair and a successful career but not in a capitalist way. She has many female friends. The good feminist doesn't feel the need to shave her legs or wear makeup and she equal opportunity dates. She doesn't hate men, she educates. She had her children by IUI. Or not. 

Because she doesn't actually exist.

Not any more than the Good Girl. You remember her? The middle school version of the Good Feminist who everybody liked and she had the best grades and nicest dress at the school photo. No, I don't either. But we were all told to be her! 

There is something exhaustingly heart breaking in the thought that the perfection of the good girl followed us into this, the very thing we were revolting against has now entered into the room in a different disguise. 

"If you're such a feminist, why do you *insert any flaw here*?" Because I'm still a god damn human being! Wasn't that the point? Surely the point of feminism was to give us the choice to be fully human and do what we can to make the world better one step at a time, one person at a time, instead of a façade of perfection?  Isn't the work towards equality, however small, and the will and the energy more worth than the heals on my feet or my lack of career ambition? But no, once again it has to be done to perfection or it's picked apart and deemed not worth a try. Usually by a man. Do you know how many times I will re-read this, like any of my feminist posts, to make sure it sounds good enough? To make sure it's not too offensive? Or just too pointless. Perfection drains the will to do any of this out of us all and I know that's the point. Maybe if you tell us we're not perfect enough at this either we'll just stop. "What do you even do about it anyway? Why don't you do something instead of just sitting there writing?" Do you not think I have heard that a million times before. Why do anything at all if you can not do it to perfection.

No. I do not have short hair or a career. Some of my choices, especially when it comes to my interactions with women, are very questionable. My legs are smooth as babies cheeks, but you know what? It doesn't make me any less of a believer in the cause. It doen't make my fire any less bright or the things that I can do any less worth. I am not the housekeeper of all the worlds feminist endeavours. I just do what I can on a little corner and that is enough. One corner is enough. And the rest of the time I just want to enjoy the fucking world a little like any other person. ( Oh and I can hear you say right now "why don't you just tell me what you do do then?" but I wont. Nothing gets better for me once again listing things and putting it up for judgement.)

No. I am not the good feminist. I don't want to fight every day of my life because we all know the world will still be a misogynist place long after I'm gone. After you're gone too. We didn't spend a thousand and one years as property to fix the thought patterns and assumptions of life in just over 100 years, surely you know that? And I am so tired...Despite that I do love this world, more than I will ever be able to express, and I want to live in it too while I'm here. And honestly, I doubt 'the Good Feminist' does overtime.

For anyone interested enough (or Swedish enough), listen to Penntricket & Postpatriarkatet as well. They have some amazing stuff to tell you.

Now I'm going to stay up very late, eat in bed naked and watch some new and shiny episodes of Girls. Because I can.

All Hallows Eve

Step right up! Mini exhibition at number 71!

*Imagine, if you will, a tiny little man with a large moustache presenting a sideshow with just a cone for a megaphone.*

It took me a very long time to figure out what my first little exhibition was going to be about. I only knew I wanted it to be for Halloween because, despite the turbulence of the past two years Halloween is still my favourite English holiday. I like the dressing up, the pagan superstitions, the gothic darkness..the idea that the veil between the living and the dead is thinner and maybe, just maybe... 

In the end it was obvious. The reason I take my Victorian Pictures is to try to reach through to a different world, make the veil transparent between our past and present. So here they are. Some of my favourite photos. Of both the living and the dead.

'As we are now they once were. As they are now we one day will be.'

And if you feel slightly terrified by that thought, let me off set that with lines from pop songs written on strips of paper.

Happy Halloween

Coming soon to Argyle street

 

  It is a new street, a new house..a new life. Life changed and I changed with it. The moment I stepped into this house I felt like it had been waiting for me. With it's creaking floors, glass doors and closets with strangely ornate wallpaper..it was like it was haunted. Haunted by every place I had ever been happy. I touched the walls and felt the uneven surface of a home where I had felt safe as a child before I knew what being foreign meant. The yellow afternoon light was shining in and the breeze reminded me of days waking up late at 19 in my chaotic but liberated new life. The sounds and smells of the place where I lit a fire every morning. It has the warm and homely insufficiency I came to adore when the English kindly took me in. Where I saw my baby grow up. It was like I was finally home after such a long journey. I put my Art Nouveau bag down, like a metaphorical witch, and creativity started pouring out of it. It has been years and years since people have seen my strange artworks because once at a railway station really doesn't count! 

But after a series of much more fortunate events suddenly everything seems possible. Almost easy. Like arabesque flowing on a paper. Life will never be the same again but I have now moved beyond the point of no return and I no longer wish I could go back in time. It is time for my creations to pour out of my my window, out onto the street.

Lovers Avenue

Old books are beautiful. I have bought them for years just because I like how they look but I very rarely actually read them. So to me they were already art. 

I bought them all for almost nothing in charity shops, but they were all specifically chosen for their meaning when I decided what to make in what book. There is 'In Praise of Sweden', a factual book about landscapes and customs. 'Charles Dickens Christmas Books', homely but witty stories for the holidays. 'Madame Bovary', the French novel about a trapped and heartbroken wife. 'Vanity Fair', where the destitute Rebecca flirts her way up the social ladder. 'En Skandal', a Swedish society novel about the "two types of women". 'Red Eve', a knights tale. And 'Anna Karenina', about how a woman who wants too much loses all.

I only used things from the books them selves to tell the stories, things I could find and my memories to illustrate the feeling.

It started as an impulse to make sense of an incomprehensible situation. I started to trace people and experiences from my past and present by focusing on them one by one and since I often describe parts of my life as chapters of books it made sense. I didn't know why I started making them, I just felt I had to. All the while trying to find the answers to why. Why these people? Why now?

Every book is in one way a person I have loved or an experience that has shaped me. But it's not about the people them selves but about my relationship to them. Some more personal than others. 

 It starts all the way back to 2003 when I fell in love for the first time and continues through my love affairs, the rise and fall of my married life and heartbreaks over 15 years. 

None of these are people I've had a normal relationship with. That was almost an unspoken criteria. As if I needed one..

It is all people I have lost. But love doesn't die. And people evolve. Love changes form and remains as the very underpinning of our existence. I would not be who I am without them. And as I put down the last one to let the blood stains dry I understood for what purpose I had made them. It was after all not them. It was parts of me, like puzzle pieces falling into place. 

And in that moment I remembered who I am again.

the Actress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQuvPpS9_Fk

the Heartbreaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guCv9OVKPAA

the Darkness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5avN2fhvEQ

the Rapture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01wSaj2dLI0

the One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHc-snDvq-Q

the Professor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm1BigJoK00

the Wolf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTevoUhDeoM&t=4436s

Good morning Patriarchy.

We are so good together but still there is something thats chafing. What is it that's chafing?

I'm going to tell you what I think it just might be. I know I should wait for years in painful accommodation, work with what is, make it seem real and appealing..but I have wasted so much time already. Like I've said before, men walk around in an empty cloud where they can not see them selves and certainly not anyone else but more than that they trust nothing. Nothing that doesn't come from them selves is real. Nothing. Everything is up for debate and scrutiny. Men trust women with their lives as much as capitalists trust the working class with money. I've never been trusted to take care of my self or anyone else, no proof will ever be enough, it can never eradicate that it's a fundamental corner stone of the patriarchy for men to not trust women. We shouldn't have to be micromanaged and mistrusted for another century by people who think of us as mysterious fairies and don't even have the faintest idea of how much we do or value our work until it isn't done, surely they need to do better than that. If you think about it, that's what all the petty little things really come down to. We need to be punished into submission for our own good..

 If I had one wish today it would be to be trusted like one trusts a man. Blindly. The possibilities would be endless.

All I want is time to heal.

Liberation does not lie in more explanations and justifications. It will never end. Liberation lies in cutting those losses and believing your self while he doesn't.

 http://www.arsinoe.se/tid-att-laka/

Early morning Objectification

One thing I have noticed in my many and relatively various relations and interactions with men is that a lot of you out there don't actually know what objectification feels like and therefore can not identify it amongst your selves. Men tend to think of objectification way too simplistic, as if it can be avoided by avoiding certain practical behaviour, but objectification is a way of thinking, not a way of acting. We all grow up in the patriarchy and boys are literally raised to think of girls as different, not quite as human, mysterious and difficult to understand. Of course you will all have objectifying behaviour. But let me put it like this: the two main factors of objectification is treating someone as not a whole, real person but just parts that can be used (not necessarily sexually may I add) and doing things explicitly against someone's will (quite likely because of the first one. An collection of parts has no will). If you think you might be objectifying someone that's a good check list! Now, I know that because growing up as boys you never learned to read silent language (body language, facial expressions,tone of voice, circumstances) and that makes it hard to know if you are wanted or not, but you can learn to and always ask if unsure.

Something technically objectifying can feel nothing like that in the context of being a real person with a will that's respected. 

Why erase when you can adapt. 

 And If you feel like these points of view of mine made no sense, here is some more explanatory words.

           "Half please." -  "BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?"

the power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

Picture taken from this new exciting blog I just found! (Swedish, I'll get back to you on that later)

A song For a Coin. (guest post)

It is no coincidence that as and artistic person I have other artistic people in my life. I believe it is an essential necessity of life to make connections with like-minded people. There is no feeling quite like reaching out and finding the hand of another in the dark.

A song for a coin

He said 

"God never takes everything"

He had a guitar with a broken string 

In the deathwish

of crushing night 

Ink spills lost hope, 

Paints lost light. 

He said 

"God never takes everything"

And that music was all that was left of him. 

Failure and grief 

Stain a canvass 

And something is left of this 

empty mess. 

He said 

"God never takes everything"

A page. A pen. A broken string. 

Jade Alcestis Hall 2017

Jade, 31, living in North London. Newly disabled and getting to grips with it. Bisexual, cis female, polyamourous, incurable lefty intersectional feminist. Also uh... Incurable, but let's not get too morbid. That's what poetry is for. 

My blog is thetensionandthespark.wordpress.com. 

Never before have I invited anyone into this space. But my world is not just me. I learned quite brutally that I am nothing without the people I love. My world is enriched by them and I am now putting my fence down, smashing the wall, and asking them in. 

My first guest post ever is written by one of the strongest most inspirational people I know.  With her Snow white- like beauty comes a clever, creative and resilient mind. There is something in her way of bringing things together and seeing the context that always impresses me. She is the dandelion growing through the cracks of the road. She is my first choice for creating a future feminist commune with. And I feel grateful to get to have her in my life. 

Through the good and the bad.

Tudor Child at Kentwell

And so he went off through the time tunnel and into the 16th century. As usually with soon to be 9 year olds it is a mystery what actually happened there but I imagine them running through the woods shooting small birds and rabbits with bows and arrows and spit roasting them outside a stone cottage, washing some clothes in stale urine and then ending it in true Tudor style with a visit to the executioner. Either way, he came home alive and smiling and that is enough for me.

The internet is a wonderful place sometimes and if it wasn't for the blogs about button making, Pinterest patterns and just one of the best named music videos of all times, Medieval hardcore party mix, I would have found this much trickier. I find it really interesting how in just small ways people did things differently, prioritised differently in other times. Aside from of course only having access to natural materials. The shirt is cotton, which is not impossible but quite unlikely in this context but I had to work with what I had (an old pillowcase). The rest though is wool and linen! The trousers and doublet is linen fabric imported all the way from Scandinavia, where the preference for synthetics never really caught on, and the hat is a woolly felt cap. Everyone in Tudor times did have to wear their woolly hats..

The little felt bag on the leather belt he made him self and wore proudly.

And I'm just going to pick up my horn and blow it for just a minute and say that I thought he was the most authentic Tudor child on the whole trip. They were all good, the whole class looked amazing, even the teachers were dressed up and I was just a little envious that I couldn't go, but..even if no one else had cared I still knew it was made out of linen, from an actual 16th century pattern and had buttons made in the medieval way. And even if my fingers and knees bled and it half stressed the life out of me I could never really water out the passion for these things. I think in a way, my addiction to details and historical obsession comes out of a want to connect. With every hand-sewn stitch I feel like I can reach out and almost touch the people that lived right here hundreds of years before me. Like their footprints are still in the very ground I stand on and if I can just replicate every step I can almost...

"Up to the present day Cambridge has 19 student houses, in addition to which 14 colleges have been built with such grandeur and magnificence that you might think they were royal palaces and not accomodation for students. In short, although I have travelled in many countries and seen many cities, I must admit that I have hardly ever seen anything comparable to this town and these schools, for everything is in such perfect order that nothing better could be imagined." 

 I'm half tempted to make my self a 16th century kirtle and cap now..

Luckily I have this book to help me on my way.

 

http://www.kentwell.co.uk/

To the hot summer breeze and to letting go.

Feminism in translations

This will be a series in which I translate well known feminists works or parts of their writings from Swedish to English and talk a little about my point of view. Let us begin.

Written by Fanny Åström:

Top 10 horrible things men have done

  

No 3 - Emotionally exploited us

Because I didn't ask my partner to do all the emotional labour I also have no responsibility for it becoming that way.

Men exploit women emotionally in relationships and that means we have no strength left for ourselves or each other. This practice lays the groundwork for the patriarchy and is thereby one of mens worst crimes. And not only that, they make us do it voluntarily. Because we are dependent on his validation of us to become whole (or as whole as possible) human beings in this society we then bow to his superiority. We even desire oppression.

 No 8 - Not being able to handle feelings

Because I have no contact with my emotional life I will lie and say everything is fine. Instead it becomes up to you to interpret my signals and adjust your self. That's handy because then I don't have to take any responsibility.

 To say that things are fine when they are not. To not comfort you when you cry because you are "too old for that". To make his own shortcomings into that of the woman by telling her not to "cry like a baby". Or just all the other ways men refuse to handle his own and other peoples feelings. That fucking sucks. I am tired of curling men who  DOESN'T GET IT or doesn't want to get it! Luckily I don't have to do that anymore and that is something that fills me with joy every day. It's such a relief to not have to take care of mens retarded and shit-boring emotional life. It's like there is never any movement? Just an endless ranting.

 No 9 - Make us doubt our selves and eachother

She went into a relationship where she got less relationship VOLUNTARILY. And because it was voluntary it's automatically right.

They instil a feeling of that we can's trust our selves, our relationships with eachother or thoughts. Simply: we are forced to internalise their hatred of us into our selves. It's awful because it makes us hate our selves and eachother. This internalised hate of women is so difficult to stop and it's constantly topped up because we have men surrounding us.

I chose these 3 points because I want to talk about the thing that underpins our society: Mens lack of emotional labour. I will probably come back to this because it is so fundamentally saturating. Not teaching our boys to do emotional labour is by far the most damage one can do individually to our society. Not only does it leave the boys them selves to grow up into some sort of deluded half humans, distant from them selves and everyone around them, unable to express their own emotions or form lasting connections. We also create an army of emotional abusers. 

The patriarchy will never fall unless we stop living under the pressure of mens emotional control. There are two choices really. Either keep talking and hope that the men around you will one day understand what we are saying and be there when they are needed and not suck us dry of all energy. Or cut out these emotional vampires entirely from your life.

Stop living in the illusion that men are somehow easier than us, that we just complicate things, the reality is the most simple explanation. They just don't give a shit. They don't! not on the same level. They don't see you, they don't see them selves. Don't doubt your self, when he sais things like "I only give compliments when you least expect it", it means "I enjoy my superiority over you".  When he sais "What do you expect me to do?" in that tone of voice that we all know, hear "Don't expect me to be there for you as I expect you to be there for me". Don't doubt that hollow feeling, the feeling that if you could just do the right thing or feel the right way, it would all be so wonderful. You are not the only one who should be making it wonderful. And not in a way that can be bought or silenced. If you ask to be seen he has a responsibility to see you, you do not have a responsibility to want less! He isn't going to want less. Why are you not "this way" and accepted for that but he is? You should not be expected to trust someone who isn't there, who outright refuses to reassure you, or who would use your vulnerability against you to protect their own feelings of inadequacy. The message is always the same. Settle or lose. 

Now, I'm still in the category of the ones who still try to save my relationships with men. But studies show that women's mental health improves after divorces and that women with strong female relationships do far better than women surrounded by men and that is no coincidence. Make no mistake, I have never felt as terrible as since the day I decided to approach men as whole human beings. They are not. Not because they couldn't be, we are all born the same..but because we all made them that way. And we need to stop so it isn't too late for the next generation as well. I need all men in my life to step up and do their emotional labour right now! 

The only time I give you emotional validation is when I feel the relationship is threatened. Why should I make you feel safe and loved unnessecarily?

As a last point I just want to add this one:

 No 6 - Do not appreciate us

Despite claiming our whole world they have no appreciation for what they get. This is so incredibly ignorant and disgusting. Can't you at least appreciate the patriarchy if you're going to insist on keeping half the population in oppression? Isn't that the least one can ask? God, if I had been a man I would have damn well enjoyed it, but instead they walk around in a cloud of nothingness. Such a fucking waste.

Read the whole blogpost here.

If you read Swedish, go in and check her out, she is amazing.

Tea stands for Tudor

 

 So I finished the Tudor era shirt. It's made out of 5 squares really, just like any pre-industrial shirt, plus cuffs and collar. I felt like it needed something though. It's cotton even though that would probably not have been the case in actual Tudor times but I can't really fix that.. but I can fix the colour! So I did what I do with most things and dipped it in tea. It was a tea flavoured "berries and biscuits" so it smells nice as well. My fingers now hurt from all the hand sewing but it is totally worth it for the relative accuracy! And the child didn't mind wearing it, that's always a small victory.

Next up is the trousers and doublet.

Nightmares in June

Sometimes I come across this illness..PTSD. Much like being a psychopath it's one of the mental illnesses that leave physical scars on the brain, in this case it affects short term memory and emotion control the worst which often leads to confusion, exhaustion and difficulties communicating or recognising ones feelings. Nightmares and insomnia is common. It also makes you hyper aware of your surroundings, like subtle changes in peoples faces and tones of voices.

 Or so I hear.

 Ironically I frequently forget that I have PTSD and it's like a new discovery every time. Every day perks there.. 

For anyone who doesn't know, PTSD stands for post traumatic stress syndrome and comes from living through traumatic events without properly healing. It feels a lot like I imagine it would feel if you one day woke up covered in a full body tattoo that someone else designed and you had to work on removing that for the rest of your life while people ask you why you got the tattoo if you hate it so much. Once you are done you might not even look like the same person. And no, not everyday is a battle. Having a terrible memory has saved me from so much pain and while I can't remember my past I feel truly happy. Until I remember. Until something happens. Because it is never from the inside, this is not an inside disease, it comes from the outside and works its way in. When the trigger happens the world stops and I fall back into the rabbit hole..and the clearest thought in my head is how much who ever I ask for help is going to hate me for presuming to ruin their day with my trauma. So I try. I try to climb up, try to forget again, try to see the light. But I can't say it doesn't create a deep hate for the ones looking down in the hole while I climb. Their backbound hands and encouraging words mock my struggle, I never asked to be strong on my own. The worst thing I find is not that I'm broken. It's that most people are fine.

The thing I find have helped the most is having people around who will reassure me I'm not insane (well..figuratively) and to put responsibility where it really lies, not focus so much on my guilt and shame. 

June is PTSD awareness month (apparently) so if I can give one advice if you know someone with an unwanted full body tattoo.. Don't fix, just love. And love as obvious as you can. We can fix our selves.

"Divorced, beheaded and died.."

 

In a little over a week my son is having a Historical class trip back to Tudor times (16th century) so I'm now hand-stitching until my fingers bleed,as you do, for the most authentic looking costume of all. I'm making the shirt first. I made it out of an oversized pillowcase from a charity shop and it's supposed to be a peasants costume so there are really not much details, just plain white with strings to tie at the neck and the wrists. I couldn't resist making a simple ruff collar though, it just looks so much more Tudor. I've made it according to a pattern of a Tudor shirt and sewn the seems that show by hand. As a last thing I will dye it with tea to make it a darker more worn in shade but for now I will let my fingers rest. 

Good night.

It's a new world.

As the old chapter closes a new one begins and with that comes a new era of Victorian pictures. 

So far I've started out photographing the people who were there in the very beginning, trying to create a perspective on time passing, but I wont end it there. In the past I was so focused on it looking authentic, to achieve that serious and passive look that was all the rage in the olden days, that I lost some of what had lured me in in the first place. The human aspect of it all. How, despite being a hundred years apart, we are all people with lives and thoughts and feelings. I want to bring some of that back now. I want to create odd pictures. Pictures that communicate silently. 

A while ago I found a book about the works of Toulouse Lautrec. I've always liked his style but in there is something specific.. Aside from the music hall paintings and those of known people of the day he also did a few of his paintings while living inside a brothel. They may not be photographs, but they could be ground for some very interesting inspirations.. 

A little later some one gave me a book of Toulouse Lautrec posters to put on my walls and it has now affected me so much that I've dyed my hair ginger, the most popular hair colour in the paintings. So to the sounds of Erik Satie..It is so on..!

Welcome to the new chapter.

Photographing the 1880's. Life inbetween

It had been over a decade since the first and the latest off my Victorian pictures. A lot of things have happened in between those days. I'm glad to have captured the people that has passed through my life. 

In 2007 and 2008 I was pretty busy creating a baby so the pictures were left behind. I did persuade a few people to let me capture them though. Most memorable of these I think is the first appearance of my son in the 2008 art nouveau style one. I remember dressing up my 4 month old in a vintage baby cap and a white shirt and photographing him in a box. Part of me thinks his early start may have contributed to him being such an excellent model now, over 8 years later.

In 2010 I made an attempt to simplify my photos. I focused more on creating the right environment and be a little more..casual. By now I had some photographic help from my Victorian partner in crime and one of my favourite creative collaborator, Amanda. I had the fortune at this point to be living in one of my favourite houses in the town where I grew up, a turn of the century wooden house and much of the inspiration came from the house it self.

 Before I packed up and immigrated I wanted to have some recollection of my last time in Scandinavia. My mother in law asked me to make her a costume and I got to take some pictures as well. But mostly it was me, my son and Amanda playing around in the sunny April afternoons. Little did we know it would be the last ones.

During these 10 years one person was born and another person has died. In 2016 when I picked up my camera again it was in her memory I decided to continue. She died in early February from aggressive leukaemia and with that she closed this 10 year chapter of mine. I felt like the least I could do was to finish what I started so when I found the empty second hand album I had always put it off for I decided it was time. By the end of August 2016 I once again moved away and the album ended with the people who had been there with me while I cried over her last words. 

The very last picture was, of course, of her. 

For my beloved soul-sister Amanda. Until we meet again.

Photographing the 1880's, inspiration.

As I have probably said 100 times, I like the 1880's because it's at the very end of one chapter in time and at the same time at the very beginning of the chapter we are still living in. In Swedish the saying for the olden days is literally 'in the 19th century' and the earliest time we can recreate in clothes without looking decidedly dressed up is the late 1800's. And every time we switch on a light we do that same thing that once fascinated the late Victorians. 

Or maybe we have already turned the page and I just haven't noticed yet..

I may not have said quite as many times that I like Victorian photographs because they are so very relateable, the people in them look like people just like us, while at the same time we can almost be certain that they are dead at this point. It's like a modern version of the medieval 'dance of death', they were once just like us and one day we will all join them in whatever follows. It's like a welcoming hand reaching out through the silver coated paper. 

Maybe that's why I like the ones where people smile the most. 

They generally look gravely serious. Contrary to popular belief it wasn't that it took so long to hold a smile, not by the end of the century anymore, although I'm sure that contributed. It was just not considered 'classy' to smile. Imagine if there was one picture of you taken in your lifetime (or death, but I'll get to that another time), you would want that picture to represent you as well as possible I'm sure. Well, most Victorians wanted to be seen as respectable, composed, genuine..and they thought it ridiculous to smile in a picture. It's for the same reason as the less well to do made their best efforts to look better off in that one single picture. Would you spoil your only chance of being remembered?

But I look for the same thing in dead people as I do in the living ones. Humanity. I like the pictures that show the reality or the unshielded..the slightly off but warm and and deep and kind. People where they look just like us or anyone in the street.

I think I lost that throughout the years of trying to create authenticity in my pictures. In this new chapter of my life and my photographs I will take a turn off to the side street and try to find my way back to that.

Back to the beginning.

I want to take you back to the beginning. 

I remember the back parlour of my grandmothers house. She called it 'salin' and it is where she held her prayer meetings. On an old dresser by the back wall there stood two photographs, one of each of her parents. They were both black and white, the one of her mother clearly older, and both dead by the early 90's when I remember them first. I've always had a fascination for old photographs. They have and air of "where you are now, we once were and what we are now so will you one day be". Quite morbid for a child, I admit, but to me it had a feeling of reassurance.

In 2006 I bought the first camera I had ever owned. In 2005 I had broken with tradition, burned bridges and settled into a rather unconventional relationship with the man I eventually married. Those two events might seem completely disconnected but they are in fact the main sparks that lit my 1880's fire. He was an artist. The kind who questions life. Shirtlessly painting and smoking on balconies while barely affording to eat. He let me in and encouraged me to pursue my artistic dreams. Everything that had been suppressed for convention and that my inner voice told me was 'unnecessary' flooded out of me. I already knew this was what I wanted to try to do.
For the first time in the spring of 2006 I had enough spare money of my own to buy my self a little red camera. With that I started to document my world and the people in it and it occured to me that even with that I could try to make pictures similar to the ones on my grandmothers dresser. If I could imagine it, why not at least try..

With cheap cameras, library books and apprentice levelled use of photoshop on an internet-less computer I made my first attempts. People I had only just gotten to know posed, sometimes reluctantly, in my poorly lit one room. In clothes I found or made. Some of those people became friends I'm still close to 11 years later. 

I didn't know it then..but these pictures, however crude, were to mark the beginning of a chapter that only really ended with this year. They became just as much a record of us as people as it did an artistic experiment. 

Maybe that's why I will keep on making them. To record the changes of people while keeping them confined to my favourite decade in time. Like a lens through which people can be someone else and them selves entirely at the same time. Because in all other pictures all over the internet and in peoples phones, and there is a lot more of them now than when this started, the surrounding changes, fashion changes..but in my pictures only the person changes. Everything else stays the same. 

So this is where I started. With a base of my sister Erika, Carlos, Sakina and my self. And who ever I could persuade to join us. There was a lot of experimentation. Not all good! and very little access to..well everything. But they definitely have a special place in my heart. Like an ugly baby.

In the autumn of that year I started fashion school and with the improving sewing techniques  this was never going to end, was it..