Type of work: Light Installation

Material: 43 km of crocheted fishing line with the diameter of 1.00 mm

Size: 4 x 4 x 1 metre

Year: 2026

Placement:  Staffanstorps konsthall, Sweden

Photos: Martin Billberg

About the work: “Cumulus” consisted here of 43 km of fishing line crocheted by hand and was installed in the church-like ceiling of Staffanstorps konsthall during the exhibition “OVER ALL” together with artist Lennart Alves’ cyanotypes. The cloud was lit by existing lamps in the ceiling which made the cloud-like forms resemble a fluffy cloud in the summer when the temperature is favorable and the weather is stable. The exhibition ran from the 17th of April to the 24th of May.

Materials: Crocheted fishing line with the diameter of 1.00 mm

Size: From 25 x 25 x 15 cm to 80 x 50 x 50 cm

Year: 2026

Placement:  Concert Hall & City Theatre of Helsingborg, Sweden

Photos: Martin Billberg

About the work: Cocoons is an installation of spheres made in fishing line in the diametre of 1 mm. The fishing line is crocheted by hand and every cocoon measures from 25 x 25 x 15 cm up to 80 x 50 x 50 cm.The cocoons were installed at the Concert Hall and the City Theatre in Helsingborg during the event Drömljus (Dream Light) in February 2026. Each cocoon was lit by a lamp of multiple leds from beneath.

Type of work: Larger light installation

Materials: 40 km of crocheted fishing line in the diameter of 1.00 mm

Size: 3,5 x 2,5 x 1,5 metres

Year: 2025

Temporary placement:  Sofiero Castle Garden, Helsingborg, Sweden

Photo: Martin Billberg (above)

About the work: During the light event Höstljus at Sofiero in Helsingborg, Sweden, a cloud of 40 km fishing line was installed. Höstljus was open between October 26th until November 9th between 4.30 and 9 pm. The 40 km fishing line is crocheted by hand by the artist and was lit into a cloud of rain and thunder in collaboration with light designer Viktor Hallonsten.

Title in English: Shedding Skin

Type of work: Installation of skins

Materials: Knitted fishing line with the diameter of 0.45 mm

Size: Each skin from 225-245 to 35-60 cm

Year: 2024-2025

Placement:  Galleri Skelderhus, Munka Ljungby, Sweden

Photos: Martin Billberg

About the work: 

Materials: Crocheted fishing line with the diameter of 1.00 mm

Size: 60 x 45 x 30 cm

Year: 2025

Permanent placement: Spacehouse Himalayas, Garden Room

Photos: Abhishek Khedekar

About the work: “Spacehouse Cloud” is an installation with crocheted fishing line in the diameter of 1 mm installed hanging from the ceiling in the garden room of Spacehouse Himalayas. It was produced during the artist residency of 3 weeks in the same place. The material of the crocheted fishing line is like a spatial drawing of a cloud that seems to float in the air. More information about the residency can be found at Spacehousehimalayas.com/artists

Materials: Crocheted fishing line in the diameter of .45 mm

Size: Each piece between 15 and 30 cm along one side

Year: 2025

Permanent placement: Spacehouse Himalayas

Photos: Abhishek Khedekar

About the work: “Netting/nesting” is an installation with crocheted fishing line in the diameter of .45 mm in five parts installed in the pommegranate tree by the entrance of Spacehouse Himalayas. It was produced during the artist residency of 3 weeks in the same place. It had the working title “Triangular Thoughts for a Tree” and the 5 different parts interact and reflect natural light at day and artificial light at night, somewhat ressembling spiders’ nets or nests.More information about the residency can be found at Spacehousehimalayas.com/artists

Materials: Crocheted fishing line in the diameter of .45 mm

Size: 12 x 10 x 10 cm

Year: 2025

Permanent placement: Spacehouse Himalayas

Photo: Abhishek Khedekar

About the work: “Spacehouse Small Sphere” is a small object of crocheted fishing line in the diameter of .45 mm. The uneven sphere resembles a small cocoon. 3 spheres were produced during the artist residency where one sphere ended up in London in Europe and two remained in India: one in Adalaj, Gujarat and one in Spacehouse Himalayas. More information about the residency can be found at Spacehousehimalayas.com/artists

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Collect, structure and trace. On the art of Joanna Thede

To collect, structure and trace. These are the three methods that Joanna Thede works with.

To collect, it takes time. It takes perseverance and determination. To structure, on the other hand, requires an overview and a sense of spatiality. To trace means to follow an inner voice, to search and be led by one’s longing to find and understand.

Joanna Thede’s works Recollections – Patterns and Years of Recollections (both from 2015) and Re-Trails and Re-Tales (both from 2018-2019) are clearly based on the methods of collecting, structuring and tracing. In such different materials as medicinal blister packages in aluminium, beach-found fragments in glass, metal and plastic together with braided hair – both synthetic and natural – the artist lets common and short-lived objects represent the existential dimensions of life.

Under what conditions does a person live, who is dependent on a medicine to survive? Why do we continue to poison the world’s oceans, even though the consequences are devastating? Can the status difference between natural and artificial hair tell us something about interpersonal hierarchies based on the colour of one’s skin and economy?

Another common trait in these sculptural installations is the strong impression of pattern, creating rhythm and motion. Simultaneously, a suggestive effect appears when a collection of uniform objects is joined in this way into one single, larger body. The eye thus forced to shift between, on one hand, seeing the individual part in the overall image and, on the other, grasping the large form.

In consideration of Joanna Thede’s readily use of already existing objects, her art can be described as a kind of collage. The meeting between smooth and rugged, elegant and disgusting, creates visual collisions, leading to the appearance of new possibilities of interpretation.

A hundred years ago, the artists calling themselves Dadaists and Surrealists sought precisely this kind of bewildering, contradictory experiences. In Stones and Bones (from 2020), she uses materials that evoke just these split feelings: smooth, sea-sanded stones next to skeleton parts and bone remnants from bird and fish.

The long, hand-knitted textiles in Green Reflections (from 2022) bring to mind the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), who in her textile sculptures and large-scale installations embodied memories and childhood traumas in yarn and tapestry fabric.

A similar approach is used by Joanna Thede in The Way Home (1998), where an old salvaged blouse is embroidered with blood-red lines to draw the traces of the artist’s travels. Simultaneously, the sewing thread becomes a frenetic bloodstream with the heart or home as a pulsating, radiant center – a reminder of the transience of life and, perhaps, of never stopping to collect, structure and trace.

/ Linda Fagerström, freelance art critic and associate professor in Art history & visual studies at Linnæus University, Sweden

–

The design is made by Andreas Nordström and photographers are Maja Kristin Nylander, Cecilia Sering and Anna Bokström, among others. The catalogue is printed by Mixi Print in Olofström and bound by Förlagshuset Nordens Grafiska in Malmö, Sweden. There is a reflective surface inside the front and back cover which are glued by hand.

Please send an email if you would like to buy one! The cost is 200 SKR and the postage cost is 72 SKR.

Materials: Fishing line, video projection, projector stand

Size: Approximately 1,70 x 1 x 1 metres

Year: 2023

Exhibited: Stadshusgalleriet in Laholm

Photo: Maja Kristin Nylander

About the work: “Windings” is a light installation made from 8 873 meters of fishing line in the sizes .40, .45 and .50 mm. The fishing line is crocheted by hand and wound together into a cloud-like object, which is illuminated with a looped short film of moving light. The projector is built into a plywood box. Fishing line is a grateful light material and I got the idea for the projection when the sun’s oblique October rays filtered in through the remaining foliage on the crocheted fishing line lying in a pile in the studio. Thanks to Karro Håkansson for partial help with crocheting and to Tony Petersson for making the projector stand!

Materials: Mixed acrylic and wool yarn knitted by hand, recycled wooden strips, cat hair, fishing line crocheted by hand

Size: 8 x 3 x 0,05 metres

Year: 2023

Exhibited: Stadshusgalleriet in Laholm

About the work: “Green Reflections” is an installation in five parts knitted from mixed acrylic and wool yarn and with small cocoons of cat hair wrapped in crocheted fishing line. The green parts are about 2.20 meters long and the blue 2.10-2.50 meters high. In the green ones, I’ve knitted the shapes with jagged edges and structure in the surface by randomly using knit and purl stitches higgledy-piggledy. The frames are made with recycled wood where the frames of the blue parts are laminated in strips to suit the organic shapes. The cocoons are made of red-blonde cat hair that varies between lighter and blonder, and the small nets for the cocoons are crocheted with fishing line.

The work title is a play on the word reflection, which can be both a physical reflection and a thought. In terms of the title, the work is also associated with the earlier “Reflections – Memorising Monet” as Monet’s work “Water Lilies – Green Reflections” inspired the design of that work.

Photos: Maja Kristin Nylander

Material: Ceramics

Size: 2,30 x 2,80 x 0,2 cm & 2,10 x 1 x 0,2 cm

Year: 2024

Place:  Regementsvägen 4B och 6B in Helsingborg, Sweden

About the work: In April 2023, the collaborative art work “Arbor Amorosa” was inaugurated at Stadskvarteret in Drottninghög, Helsingborg. The commissioner was Helsingborgshem and the art work was made by HKP – Helsingborgs konstproduktion with the artist members Joanna Thede, Rita Winde, Josefine Axelsson, Karin Frennesson Westblad and Rikki Winde.

“Arbor Amorosa” is made in ceramics by hand by the five artists and is installed in two passages in the residential buildings of Helsingborgshem.

Here are some images of the installation process:

Materials: Acrylic paint on concrete

Size: Approximately 22 x 6 x 5 m + 22 x 6 x 5 m (on either side of the road)

Year: 2022

Place: Gustav Adolfs gata, Gåsebäck industrial area in Helsingborg

Photo: Sarah Perfekt

About the work: In 2022, the public artwork “Gåsebäcks kulturportal” was made as a
collaboration within HKP – Helsingborgs Konstproduktion (Helsingborg’s Art Production), a studio association at Gåsebäck industrial area in Helsingborg. Five contemporary artists are the co-authors of this work: Rita Winde, Karin Frennesson Westblad, Josefine Axelsson, Rikki Winde and Joanna Thede. The idea for the work came from crocheted granny squares where all five artists each made a pattern template which was then painted on the walls in a grid like a quilt. The north and the south sides of the portal each contains a caryatid, a female figure that appears to be holding up parts of the traffic bridge above.

Commissioned by: Laholm’s municipality, Sweden

Place: Vallmons preschool in the city of Laholm in Sweden

Material: Light installation

Size: 250 x 100 x 35 cm

Year: 2022

About the commission: “Spring Twig” in Laholm is an art work that is hand carved out of balsa wood in the shape of a branch. There are drawings of leaves on five plexiglass pieces fixated in the branch. An integrated led light make it possible to light the leaves in different colours. There is a DVD hanging from the branch like a drop, and a rainbow may be lit on the wall behind the Spring twig, which the kids can then see and try to touch. The art work is installed as part of an inner room where the children get together and play and relax in the preschool of Vallmon. The art work was inaugurated in June 2022.

Materials: Stones with natural holes and skeleton pieces of fish and bird, fishing line, light setting

Size: Approx. 6 x 5 x 4 m3

Year: 2021

Exhibited: SPARK gallery in Malmoe, Sweden

About the work: “Stones and Bones” contains of approximately 30 braids of fishing line in which stones and skeleton pieces of fish and bird are braided in and are hanging from the ceiling. For many years, the stones and bones have been gathered during long beach walks. All that is gathered has been eroded by sand and waves: the bone bits are scraped clean and the stones have natural holes in them.

The work is shown with slowly pulsating light settings in three phases, giving it an impression of breathing. At the same time, the alternating shadows on the walls are displayed in different nuances as well as in multiple layers.

Here is a short video of Stones and Bones light installation:

Here are some photos by Cecilia Sering from inside and outside of the showroom:

Type of work: Painting in 4 pieces

Materials: Acrylic and waterbased oil paint on hardboard

Size: 36 x 28 cm each piece

Year: 2010 + 2020

About the work: Acrylic and water-based oil on hardboard, this series of paintings was begun in the 1990’s. The second layer was painted in the early 2000’s and the third layer – of shadows of branches in direct sun light – was applied 2020. The times and memories through the decades are inherent in the series, and the paintings have now moved to private art collections.

Commissioned by: Uddevalla municipality, Sweden

Place: Källdalsskolan in the city of Uddevalla in Sweden

Material: Print on glass

Size: 313 x 304 x 5 cm

Year: 2020

About the commission: “Stråk” in Uddevalla is an art work, printed on glass by PrintGlas in Stockholm. The art work is installed as part of the main entry at the leisure building at the school Källdalsskolan. The school with the new art work was inaugurated in September 2020.

One part of the commission contained working with pupils, and in some way re-use their material in the finished work. The pupils got the task to write down what they really like doing in their free time, except for anything related to a screen. Their contributions were inserted as elements in the pattern of the local map, forming the art work. The pupils’ own favourite spare time actions are now imprinted into the building of the leisure centre, where many of them will spend some their spare time.

Materials: Trash from beaches, fishing line

Size: 6 x 4 x 4 m3

Year: 2019

Exhibited: Hässleholms kulturhus, Sweden

About the work: “Re-Trails” consists of 33 braids made of trash that has been collected, cleaned and dried, from beach walks of appr. 30-60 minutes. The trash that is being collected, is that which nature cannot take care of itself. Every part of recollected trash has then been intertwined with fishing line into 4 metres long braids. Every walk normally produces material for 1-3 braids. After a storm, there may become as many as 5 braids per walk.
Every braid has a Swedish text describing its date, trail and the songs that have been hummed along the path.

Photos by Cecilia Sering.

Materials: Hair extensions, nylon thread

Size: 450 x 2 cm

Year: 2019

About the work: Made from recollected synthetic hair extensions on the beaches of Port Elizabeth in South Africa, this work is sewn together by hand into an oversized braid. The title is both an association to the tails of hair, and a re-telling of tales as in fairy tales regarding long hair. It also carries all the hidden tales of every woman having worn the extensions.

The Re-Tales of Port Elizabeth is 4,5 metres long, and is hanged from the ceiling when presented.

Materials: Human hair, plastic strings

Size: 400 x 2 cm

Year: 2019

About the work: “Re-Tales II (Hässleholm)” is a long braid of appr. 4 metres, containing of several parts of real hair, having been cut-off and collected from Hair in the small city of Hässleholm. The different parts of hair are twined around a base of braided fishing rod in the order of their nuances in colour. This enhances the experience of the braid being made of formerly live material.

Place: Slottsparken in Malmoe, Sweden

Materials: Plastic canvas, wooden structure, screws, wire and wire lock, a pair of outdoor spotlights on metal structure

Year: 2018

Photo: Peter Frennesson at Sydsvenska Dagbladet

About the work: The outdoor light installation “Splinters of Time” was shown for ten days in Kungsparken in Malmö, Sweden, during Metropolis: by Light Festival. The light show ran from Friday the 14th until Sunday the 23rd of September. Photo: Peter Frennesson / Sydsvenska Dagbladet daily newspaper.

Splinters of Time is an installation where the changes of the water surface draws the light play on an installation of textile and wood, displaying the wave formations. The light play changes with the wind and weather, and was number 26 on the interactive map bylight.info.

There were also experiences of light during the day time with this art work: the shadows of the greenery on a sunny day, as well as the glimpses of colourful reflections on the small spheres hanging above the structure, are such subtle changing light plays on the white surface.

Thanks to everyone having sent me images and short videos of the installation!

Here is an image by Bengt Adlers early evening of the opening night:

A photo by Uliana Vinogradova later that same evening:

A short film by Anna Södergren:

Another video by Anna Södergren of night paddlers with head lamps rowing by, whose shadows become part of the ever changing light play of the work:

Materials: Textile

Size: 600 x 150 cm

Year: 2016

Exhibited: Klippans konsthall

Materials: Human hair, plastic, device for lamp

Size: 30 x 20 x 20 cm

Year: 2016

About the work: Hairy Shades is a series of light installations made with human hair which is laminated and sewn together into lamp shades. Together with hairdresser and designer Jenny Johansson, this collaboration project explores the possibilities of making interesting light and shade patterns of the donated hair.

Above is Hairy Shade: Mum’s and below Hairy Shade: Blondie.

Type of work: Light installation

Materials: Human hair, plastic, device for lamp

Size: 65 x 30 x 30 cm

Year: 2016

Place: Northwood Children’s Hospice in Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Material: Adhesive fourcolour print

Size: 160 x 118 cm

Years: 2017-2019

About the work: Refractions is a digital photography of a light refraction made with a torch and a DVD onto a white wall indoors. The photo is then digitally reworked into a pattern for a contravision print, produced for and installed onto a double glass door at Northwood Children’s Hospice which is a children’s hospice in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The installation of the contravision print has the function of a blind: making it impossible from the outside to see through the windows, at the same time letting full day light through and keeping the view intact from inside the room.

The contravision material was installed during 2 years.

Photos: Ruth Nesbit

From the outside:

From the inside:

Size: 2000 x 450 x 350 cm

Content: During the light event Dark Light Poetry, arranged with Sydsvenska Belysningssällskapet Sydljus (Southswedish Lighting Organization South Light) at the beautiful old castle Övedskloster in the South of Sweden, the interactive light installation Vessel of Reflection was installed in three under an arched vault. The ceiling, walls and floor were drawn again and again by the colourful rainbows refracted from the surfaces of the spheres.

With some help, anyone can decide the pace of the dancing rainbows:

Photo: Anna Bokström

Photo: Anna Bokström

View from the right in the arched vault of Övedskloster’s main building:

View from outside the vault:

Photo: Georgios Polychronidis

Type of work: Interactive light sculpture (scroll down for examples of colour changes)

Size: 100 x 30 x 20 cm

Content: Wandering tree is made for a private commission. A LED string is integrated in the base of the piece and also gives the choice of a wide variety of colours. The plexiglass leads the light, which becomes visible as it hits the engraved lines. The drawing also interacts with direct daylight and may give off a shadow if it is within the range of direct sun rays at an angle with a clear surface.

The title and theme of the art work is based on a poem from the book Den halvfärdiga himlen (The semi-ready heaven) from 1962 by the renown Swede Tomas Tranströmer, a favourite poet of the commissioner. The poem in Swedish, followed by a personal translation into English:

“TRÄDET OCH SKYN

Det går ett träd omkring i regnet,

skyndar förbi oss i det skvalande grå.

Det har ett ärende. Det hämtar liv ur regnet

som en koltrast i en fruktträdgård.

Då regnet upphör stannar trädet.

Det skymtar rakt, stilla i klara nätter

i väntan liksom vi på ögonblicket

då snöflingorna slår ut i rymden.”

(In English)

“THE TREE AND THE SKY

A tree is walking in the rain,

hasting past us in the pouring grey.

It has an errand. It draws its life from the rain

as a blackbird in a fruit garden.

As the rain stops, the tree does to.

It glimpses straight, still on clear nights

waiting like us for the moment

when snowflakes burst in the sky.”

Details of differing colours, which the viewer may change at a low pace, at high speed or be turned into only one colour or white:

Type of work: Performance by Joanna Thede and Ia Neumüller, titled Blisterpartitur in Swedish

Length: Appr. 25 minutes

Content: More information is to be found after photos by Filippa Lilja

At the opening of Blister Sisters’ exhibition “Recollection: Patchworkers” at wip:sthlm, Ia Neumüller and Joanna Thede made the performance “Blisterpartitur” (Score of Blisters) to the sound piece “Magisk ramsa” (Magical Rhyme) by Leif Holmstrand.

The performance starts with the artists handing out lists of contents for medicines. The sound piece with the chanting of side effects, during which the two performers sewed threads with emptied blister packages between each other’s dresses. The performance ends with each artist cutting off the dress of the other person, leaving the dresses with their attached strings as a blister score on the floor.

“Patterns” is an artwork within the project Recollections, where the main material consists of collected and recycled emptied blister packages of medicines. The piece is a site-specific light installation using day light and transparency as its main features. Patterns consists of photographs of the artwork “Patchwork”, a handmade window blind of emptied blister packages sewn together by hand. The photos are printed onto adhesive plastic film and fastened onto the glass panes in the gallery space. Patterns is continually changing with the rhythms of day and night light, the weather conditions as well as the traffic outside in the foreground. The size of the piece is 800 x 210 x 10 cm.

Daylight photos by Helle Robertson
Day and night time documentation by Joanna Thede

Click here for short video of Patterns by day

Click here for short video of Patterns by night

Size: Each bubble has a diameter of 7 – 15 cm

Content: Within our collaborational project Breaths, artist Solveig Lindgren Inderbitzin and I made a new branch: Breaths in glass, together with Incendi glasblåseri and its owners, the glass artists Helena Dunér och Espen Jensen, in the small village of Höör in Skåne in the south of Sweden. Together, we invited two local 4th grade classes and a group of adolescent refugees, who blew glass spheres with us. Every participant made one bubble each, which continues to bear the form and traces of their breath. Thus each bubble has a personality of its own in all its imperfection, together forming an ephemeral cloud.

Installation at Höör Library – photos by Lennart Bengtsson (including the one above):

Interactive art work in progress – photos by Anna Bokström:

Photo during the opening at the library: Joanna Thede

The material is a huge amount of emptied medicine pill packages, donated by several generous collectors of which one is a nursing home for elders with dementia in Ängelholm. The blister packages are linked together with small metal loops.

Photos by Helle Robertson

The concept is from older times in Scandinavia, where the idea of “kura skymning” (=huddle in the dusk) was a fairly regular routine where people during the long hour of dusk waited for the darkness to fall before they lit a candle or a kerosene lamp to be able to continue their actions. While the light was fading, people were talking, resting, or using this time to comtemplate. It was also called “vila skymning” (Rest in the Dusk) and even “skvallra skymning” (Gossip in the Dusk), according to the book “Anden i lampan” (“The Genie of the Lamp”) by ethnologist Jan Garnert. There is interesting information about this phenomenon in Garnert’s article “On the cultural history of Nordic light and lighting“.

The installation was first shown at Kulturnatten in Höör in September 2015. Here, the fading light in the sky was visible through the hole in the top of the installation.

The material is a tent construction in thin metal, covered in thin foil blankets put together by hand. The tent is 3 x 3 x 2 metres and  inside there are seats with cushions and rugs to sit down for a while in the chilling evenings.

In the four following photos, you can see the fading light through the roof hole, and how the contrast of the light and colour is differing during the long hour of the darkening evening.

By night in Höör – a bit of wind and the surrounding artificial lights seemingly make the installation take on a life of its own:

Size: 103 x 81 cm

Content: The original art piece “Remedy for a Tree” was a site-specific artwork made for a specific tree in Slottsparken in Malmö. The piece was on display during the public outdoor exhibition Hidden Art / Dold Konst which was dedicated to the saving of trees. The exhibition ran through-out the summer of 2015 and included 120 artists from all over the world. In October 2015, parts of the exhibition continued to Tivoliparken/Sjöcronas park in Höganäs, north of Helsingborg. Within a week, Remedy for a Tree disappeared and its whereabouts still remains hidden.

The art work was made of emptied blister packages, donated by several people, and sewn by hand with nylon thread. Its perimeter was approximately 65 x 50 x 40 cm.

Size: 118 x 90 x 5 cm

Content: “Patchwork” is a site-specific art work made for the exhibition in molekyl gallery in Malmö in May 2015. With the exact measurements of one of the windows: 118 x 90 cm and a side of 5 cm, it fits into the light opening giving day light into the main gallery room. The material is emptied blister packages from medicines, donated by a number of persons. The piece is sewn by hand with nylon thread and fastened onto a frame of recycled wood.

Commissioned by: Borås’ municipality, Sweden

Place: Round-about outside the zoo of Borås

Material: Light installation

Planned size of sculpture: 13 x 10 x 3,8 metres

Year: 2015

About the commission: January 2015 marked the deadline for a sketching competition in a round-about in Borås in Sweden. The pre-ordered theme for the public sculpture was “Africa and savannah animals”, as the round-about is leading to the zoo of Borås. The title word Karibuni is swahili and means Welcome!

My idea for the sculpture was to emphazise on the traces of the animals, as one does on a real safari: looking for traces of them. The footsteps of animals is a natural and welcome sign of where to find them out on the savannah.

The material of the sculpture was intended to be a rust-opposing metal called corten steel with integrated light. Four large “legs” of this metal holds up the paths for where the animals have been walking: in this case lion, rhino, and buffalo. These model images show the night view of the sculpture. Unfortunately, I did not win the competition so the art work remains as a sketch.

Photo montage, view from the west:

Detail, scale 1:1 in metal with integrated light.

Images of the sketching model, scale 1:50.

The gate is designed in collaboration with Architect SAR/MSA Inger Thede. The figure shows the form of the stream through Råå as it were around the year of 1800. The material is perforated metal, powder-lacquered in a dark grey-blueish tone, and is made with the help of Sånna Smide in Kvidinge.
During the night time, there is a silhouette of light tracing the left side of the figure. Strings of LED lights between the perforated metal and the figure are installed by Råå Elektriska.

More images in day light:

The size of Frail Tales: Chapter 1 is approximately 25 x 20 x 20 cm. The upper side is made out of a plexiglass with a structure of smaller pyramid forms.

The bottom and backside of the piece is made out of plexiglass with a structure of honeycomb forms.

Blister Sisters is a part of the series Recollections which is supported by The Swedish Arts Grant’s Committee.

***

3rd Workshop – June 17th @ Leif’s apartment in Malmö, Sweden

Present: Leif Holmstrand, Helle Robertsson, Ia Neümuller, and Joanna Thede

The third workshop of Blister Sister’s resulted in a lot of planning, coffee drinking and sewing. The art video “Recollection Collection” is made by Leif Holmstrand.

Photos from workshop 3:

Photo: Helle Robertson

***

#2:

“IN AND OUT OF ORDER

aka

WHERE DID ALL THE SYRINGES END UP?”

2nd Workshop – June @ Leif’s studio in Malmö, Sweden

Present: Leif Holmstrand, Helle Robertsson, Ia Neümuller, and Joanna Thede

Images from workshop 2 below:

***

#1:

“THE BLISS OF SPREADING HORMONES ALL OVER LEIF’S STUDIO

aka

WHAT THE DEPP DOES TO OUR NETHER PARTS”

1st Workshop – May 22nd @ Leif’s studio in Malmö, Sweden

Present: Leif Holmstrand, Helle Robertsson, Ia Neümuller, and Joanna Thede

Sound piece “Blistering number one” by Leif Holmstrand:

https://soundcloud.com/leif-holmstrand/blistering-number-one-by-blister-sisters

Images from workshop 1 below:

The commission was won by David Svensson.

Here the prototype is placed in direct light, which makes the more transparent nature of the plexiglass thread forward.

Underneath is an image of the reflections given by the prototype when direct light bounces off the material surfaces onto a shaded wall.

Size: 85 x 10 x 0,3 cm

“Recollection – 56 days” consists of several recycled medicine packs sewn together and coated on their printed text side with white paint. The long string is formed as a spiral from floor to wall.
The spiral becomes a counterpart to its own shadow, of which the edges let through the light of the small circular areas where the pills have been. The work draws a memory of a medicating period.

Light Dial Willowherb is a piece made by me within the collaborative project Light Dial. It is a site-specific light installation that functions with both direct sun rays and artificial light on the drawings of willowherbs engraved in the plexiglass parts of the sculpture. When sun rays pass through the glass parts in the early mornings, shadows are slowly moving over the wall behind. In the night time, artificial light is timed to go on and off on diverse times so as to form a light play of warm white and red purple in the different pieces of glass which interacts with certain hours of the night. The colours are chosen to link to the willowherbs changing flower colours in summer as well as in autumn.

The willowherb theme is derived from the household in Lidingö, which runs the website for journalist and writer Jolo – Jan-Olof Olsson – who was active during the 50s and 60s. His wife Margareta Sjögren-Olsson, also journalist and writer, has written a book about her husband’s early decease. In this novel, I found out that the willowherb was Jolo’s favourite flower. Jolo and Margareta also resided in the house at Lidingö during a long period of their mutual life together.

In 2009, Region Skåne bought 3 of the spheres separately, each titled “Vessel of Reflection”, to install in their ‘Artotek’ (=Artoteque) – an art library connected to the children’s wards in the hospitals of Malmö, Helsingborg, Kristianstad and Lund in the south of Sweden. A torch comes with each sphere to make possible for the patients to themselves interact with the vessels.

In Enebyberg, in the northern area of Stockholm, a giant sundial was built partly from a branch from an apple tree, which was coated in different blue colours together with engaged family members of the household and placed outside the main window of their living room. Indoors, the window was clothed in a plastic material made out of minuscule circular tubes, which reflected direct sun light by day as well as an artificial LED light string (programmable iColor Flex IMX) by night.

The project has received funding from the Foundation of Innovative Culture, which serves under the department of Culture in Stockholm, Sweden.

The opening brought stunning sun light and interesting discussions with a lot of nice people; friends and neighbours of the persons in the household.