JANTE

Using autobiography to approach the existential absurd, Jante, a series of disparate performances and video installations, resonates with the oppressive force of family, inheritance, kinship.

Walls that adjoin at a 90-degree angle anchor the installation and reveal a boundaried pre- performance space, a staging area that puts on display a flute in its case, shelving with crisp bread, a broom, a dustpan—all props that show up in my performances.

Two 50" monitors—one mounted horizontally and the other vertically—screen edited footage of three earlier performances on a continuous loop—En Kärlekshistoria (A Lovestory - digital, color, 13:45 m), Födelsemärke (Birthmark - digital, color, 2:05 m) and Medelvägen (The Middle Way - digital, color, 2:42 m). In all three, I use my body to punctuate story with contortioned singing, dancing, screaming ’failed and wrong’ noises, externalizing and making readable vulnerability, horror, loss and grief.

The screened looped footage and staging area both serve as backdrop to Knäckebröd (Crisp Bread), my four-minute live performance where I greet viewers while kneeling and use knees that have been padded to crush crisp bread. The performance itself, which incorporates monologue as well as physical gestures of slipping, twisting and contorting, is more improvisational than rote and becomes the meeting place for an embodiment and vocalization of the passing on, from, and through intergenerational trauma.