leaky vessels and oceanic beings

We are all leaking. Leaky leaky vessels.

With a suit as an artifact – a survival capsule and a death-pod, this is a story about the plastic in our

oceans and the rising sea levels. How the melting glaciers at the poles affect the islands next to the

equator. Obsessively i glued the suit together piece by piece in an attempt to create a capsule of water that one can be submerge into. Inspired by hydrofeminist theories the suit is leaking and reflects on how we are all entangled and vulnerable to one another.

Water has been a recurrent topic in my work. This fixation is in relation to ancestrality, longing for

connectivity, and the desire to resonate with multiple species across time and space.

With this leaky being I wanted to explore what would be like to breathe as an ”oceanic being”, inhaling and exhaling its vastness at (publics) coast. I wanted to convert into a tiny “dripping drop” as a gesture of audacity facing majestic oceanic tensions of life, breathing as a voluntary mode of losing one’s points of references and ground, letting go, face ephemerality.

This work has been shown in the form of

-A performance: ”Breathing an Ocean, breathing a sea (love u like e.t) at Frascati, Amsterdam and Uferstudios, Berlin 2019

-A soloexhibition where the suit was transformed into a fountain ”That oceanic feeling” at Gothenburg International Biennale of Contemporary Arts 2021

-A performance and concert ”Leaky Vessel” at Fylkingen for ”swedish music spring” in Stockholm 2022

-Short film ” Through Magma” showed at Gothenburg filmfestival, Cinedans, Amsterdam 2024

-An exhibition called ”Oceanic Feelings” at Fotografiska in Stockholm 2024

STILLS FROM THE FILM THAT OCEANIC FEELING 2021. IN THE SUIT IS BRITTANIE BROWN AND ME. PHOTOGRAPHER: TUVA BJÖRK. B.PHOTO: KIM EKBERG. ASSISTANCE: JOHAN ADAM, ELINA BIRKEHAG AND MAX PIGOTT. 

FOTOGRAFISKA EXHIBITION 2024

FROM THE PERFORMANCE: Breathing an ocean, Breathing a sea (still love u like e.t)

In the spring of 2016, I spent a month at the ”La wakaya current” artist residency on a small island in the

Caribbean sea of Panama in the region of Guna Yala. The nights were so hot there, I always woke up in the middle of the night and went down to the sea to cool off. It was quiet and still, the air warm and humid. On the way there I met fireflies that filled the air with dots of light. When I then stepped into the warm sea, I had a snorkel and cyclops, I swam underwater for a long time and there were small plankton that light up when touched or move through light. It was like I was swimming in a warm starry sky, or maybe flying. When I was tired of swimming, I lay on my back and floated on the salty water, it was so salty that I could fall asleep like that, then I saw the starry sky falling over me, the sky is different there, far from the light pollution of the cities, the stars are so clear.

During the day, the Guna population showed us around by boat, we traveled through their archipelago and they pointed to palm crowns sticking out of the water and said ”here was an island ten years ago, and here, and here too”. And at the same time, it has started to rain much less and there has been a lack of drinking water and for watering crops.

When I got home I somehow got an obsession or dream of building a water suit, like a space suit but a human aquarium out of transparent plastic, where I breathe through a snorkel and when filled with water expands the body, the body and the borders of it is distorted by the magnifying effect of the water.. A negative to a diving suit, being submerged in a container of air. With the plastic holding water and the water holding the plastic. In the spring of 2019 it became a reality, I glued it together, piece by piece, but there is never enough glue. It is delicious. I leak. We leak.

From the exhibition at Konstepidemin 2021

Berlin, Uferstudios