ABOUT

PRACTICE

 

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2024–2026: SEX, LOVE, AND VIDEOTAPES

“Sex, Love and Videotapes” is a research project and an audiovisual production in the making, that seeks to investigate how expressions of love and sexuality were translated and regulated in a Soviet context, and how the public discourse of sexuality in a post-Soviet context shifted during the 1990s. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council and is currently based at Gothenburg University. The aim is to release it as a series of experimental documentaries throughout 2025 and 2026. In collaboration with Christina Pestova.

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2024–2025: EN ASK I EN ASK I EN ASK

Seven suitcases present the multifaceted practice of Staffan Westerberg. Each of them presents a selection of his practice and his world of thought. Ever since childhood Westerberg has been exploring the tragedy and playfulness of existence, from the early cardboard miniature theatre to puppet theatre, cabaret, television, drawing, painting, and poetry: Everyday life is transformed into stories and drama, with the help of an umbrella or a sock, a bread shovel or a piece of wood washed up on the beach. The exhibition is curated by Andjeas Ejiksson and produced by Kin museum for contemporary art in Kiruna. During 2024, it is being shown at Norrbottensteatern, Gällivare Kulturmuseum, Råneå Konsthall, and Överkalix Konsthall.

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2023–2024: THE ISOLATED BONE

"The Isolated Bone" is a collaboration between the artists Andjeas Ejiksson and Iris Smeds and curator Emily Fahlén. Taking the state, the body and their various enactments – searching for the feeling of alienation that comes with the loss of control – the project seeks to locate the language of theatre in the exhibition space, as well as the potential of art as theatre. The first part took the form of a performances event titled "The Family Is the First Spectacle" (2023). The second part was the exhibition "The Isolated Bone" at Mint (2023–2024) with works by Andjeas Ejiksson, Iris Smeds, Marion Scemama & David Wojnarowicz. The third part took the form of a performance event titled "Ship of Fools" (2024). The fourth part was produced as a poetry festival at the ABF building on Sveavägen in Stockholm.

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2023–2024: OORDING-ORDNING-OORDING-ORDNING

In this work six people perform a bodily, choreographic enactment of the language that police officers use when reporting on events and interventions. The work is based on examinations of thousands of police reports, all of them from the Norrmalm police district in Stockholm, describing someone being taken into custody. Made in collaboration with Sebastian Lingserius (choreographer). The work was first exhibited at Mint konsthall in Stochkolm, November 2023.

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2023: HARDLY WAR (BY DON MEE CHOI)

English-to-Swedish translation of the poetry collections Hardly War and DMZ COLONY. In collaboration with Jennifer Hayashida. Published by 20-tal.

 

2022: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DEATH BY KIM HYESOON
English-to-Swedish translation of the poetry collection Autobiography of Death (relay translation). In collaboration with Jennifer Hayashida. Published by 20-tal.

 

2021–2024: TV TRAMPOLINE: FROM CHILDREN’S TELEVISION TO CONTEMPORARY ART AND LITERATURE
An exhibition project that revolves around the history of children’s television. The project involves eleven artists and writers, exhibited at Fabrika in Moscow (2021), Kalmar konstmuseum (2022), Bildmuseet in Umeå (2022), among other locations. One episode of the exhibition is also released as an issue of the cultural magazine Ord&Bild (no. 2–3, 2022). Besides the curatorial framework my contribution to the exhibition, 1000 Questions, is an attempt to re-enact a collection of questions that were gathered in preparation for the launch of the public service Swedish Television Two in 1969, where they recorded approximately 1000 questions asked by children aged 4–14 in response to the question “What do you want to find out through television?” In collaboration with Maria Lind.

 

2018–2020: TELEVISION WITHOUT FRONTIERS, STATENS KONSTRÅD

Organised as a televised documentary performance and talk show, "Television Without Frontiers" investigates political imaginaries of Europe and the role of television and public service as tools to establish “common ground.” The work is inspired by the project “Eurikon,” an international collaboration initiated by the European Broadcast Union in 1982 in an attempt to build a “common ground” for the future (and present) European community. The experiment involved public service institutions from nearly 15 countries, as well as an array of journalists, cameramen, and a chorus of interpreters engaged in simultaneous multi-language translation of live broadcasts. The film competed in the Nordic:Dox category at the CPH: DOX film festival in Copenhagen, 2020.

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2018–2020: AUTOR FÖRLAG, GÖTEBORG

Member of the editorial board at the independent publisher Autor. 

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2017–2018: CIRCUS OF TRUTH

Circus of Truth was the result of a multifaceted experiment, an evening of performances, music, dance, political speeches, and a bar serving shots of truth. It was both a celebration of the collaborative experience and a sharp reminder of the political realities that shape the horizons of contemporary life. Facts, alternative facts, manipulation, propaganda – or more generally the politics of information – are all elements of the circus, in the midst of which all collective effort must find and defend its own truth. The performance was staged at Bozar, Brussles, in 2018. Curated by Dessislava Dimova for Bozar, Brussels. Collaboration with Mira Calix, Natalya Pershina, Olaf Nicolai, Asad Raza, and Sislej Xhafa.

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2016/2017: TIDSKRIFTEN ORD & BILD, GÖTEBORG
In collaboration with researcher Tormod Otter Johansson, I served as co-editor of a special issue of the magazine Ord&bild, with the theme of bureaucracy.

 

2014–2015: 1985 – MONUMENT TO A REVOLUTION​
1985 – Monument to a revolution was the outcome of a long process that sought to seek methods for narrating and investigating a political process that primarily unfolded in a bureaucratic context – the Swedish central bank – and a situation where the division between politics and administration had become blurred. The work was staged in and around a villa on Värmdö in the Stockholm archipelago. The property was acquired in 1968 by the Swedish central bank, as a gift to its employees when the bank celebrated its 300th anniversary. In collaboration with Kompani Giraff.

 

2014–2024: STAGE DIRECTIONS / WAITING ROOM

Stage Directions explores written instruction as an architectural tool. A manual describes how a waiting room is built up and taken down, and time is used as the principal unit of measurement. The waiting room is constructed by builders whose interpretation of the manual plays a central role in the project. The manual describes the construction and demolition of the structure at a certain location, within a set period, and within a particular economic framework. The project has been exhibited at Moderna dansteatern, (2014), Konstakademin (2015), Arkdes (2017), ÖSKG / Tjörnedala Konsthall (2023), The Farrell Centre (2024). In collaboration with Joanna Zawieja.

 

2013: WEIGHT – THE GÖTEBORG INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, GÖTEBORG
Weight was a one-time-only event curated as part of GIBCA and staged at Stora Teatern, in the center of Göteborg. It explored the melancholic history of a theatre marked by periods of a lack vision and ambition; the event was an attempt to shift the weight of the building. Carolee Schneemann’s work was the main source of inspiration, her exploration of the politics of desire, sexuality, and gender through the body. In collaboration with Ragnar Kjartansson.

 

2003–2012: GEIST MAGAZINE, STOCKHOLM

The experimental magazine Geist was at the centre of my artistic practice for several years, and I worked there in multiple roles, as an editor, designer, and writer. Geist had an ever-changing format for developing textual and discursive aspects of artistic practice. The outset was an ambition to propel a discussion of art in and through art practice rather than looking at and writing about art from a distance.

 

2003: TEXTEN (ANDJEAS EJIKSSON & LISA JONASSON)

Two people meet and become one. It's a tired metaphor, but in this case the meeting leads to a text. A love story that becomes an investigation of themselves, their identities; but soon the question of the text's identity overshadows everything else. The story begins: "We call ourselves I, now" and the I is this text that has become a subject and that tells itself. Andjeas Ejiksson and Lisa Jonasson's unusual debut book mixes the everyday with the philosophical, the vulgar and unrestrained erotic with the ethereal. It is an open ended text-performance where everything that is obvious is sooner or later undermined. Published by Albert Bonniers förlag.

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ACADEMIC WORK

 

 

2023–2025: RESEARCHER. HDK-VALAND, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
Three-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council. Through mapping, reconstruction, and enactment, the purpose of this research is to form new perspectives on the meaning and function of translation in audiovisual media. Situated between translation and film practice, this project sets out to investigate subversive and non-conformist approaches to audiovisual translation. The aim is to publish it as a series of experimental documentaries throughout 2025 and 2026.

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2015–2021: DOCTORAL POSITION / TEACHER, HDK-VALAND, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

PhD student and teacher. The thesis, "Television Without Frontiers", which consists of a documentary performance in the form of a TV production, paired with a media historical and theoretical text, was defended in 2021. In addition, I was teaching in the undergraduate programs in Fine Art, Photography, and Literary Composition.

 

2014: RESEARCHER. KUNGL KONSTHÖGSKOLAN, STOCKHOLM

One-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council. The title of the project was The "Theatre of Bureaucracy" and was developed in the form of an enactment ("1985 – Monument to a Revolution"), centring on the transition of public administration to market-oriented control systems, from a historiographical perspective.

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2008–2009: JAN VAN EYCK AKADEMIE, MAASTRICHT

A text based theatrical enactement performed during the course of two years, written and distributed through Jan Van Eyck Akademie.

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EDUCATION

 

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2015–2021

Konstnärlig doktorserexamen (PhD), HDK-Valand, Göteborgs Universitet.

                  

1999–2004

Magisterexamen, Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm.