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Layers of Living
in Layers of time
Lena Dahlén has worked as an actor for almost thirty years. She has worked in independent theatre groups and has initiated and performed a large number of theatre
projects. Her main interest as an artist, teacher and researcher is to make less visible
occurrences tangible visible and to highlight hierarchical conceptions and actions.
This has led to examinations of site specific performances and of the relation to the
audience. 2012 she took her PhD at the Academy of Music and Drama, University of
Gothenburg. Since then she has worked as a teacher, researcher and supervisor together with other commitments at the Academy.
Mikael Bojén is a musician. Since the mid-90s, he works exclusively with sound design of public spaces. He has established himself as a sound artist with his project
Discrete Sounds. He has created sound installations at various places as for example
Amundön, Röda Sten, Lärjeån and Rya Skog. In his work there is a sound expression
that is always done with a subtle and discreet form addressing the already existing
spirit and sound environment at the site.
Eva I Andersson is a historian whose research focuses on the social meanings of
clothing, especially in regards to social status and gender. Her dissertation from
2006 dealt with clothing in medieval Norway and Sweden. Since then she
has researched consumption of clothing, sumptuary laws and the relationship
between clothing and perceptions of gender, status and national identity in the 16th
and 17th centuries, as well as home sewing and ideals of femininity in the early 20th
century. She is also an enthusiastic sempstress who likes to put her research into
practice and re-create clothing from the periods she researches - to test drive her
theories, and to wear and feel pretty.
Royner Norén has experience as a journalist, but has also been involved in the museum sector as a pedagogue and assisted with audiovisual and textual work in the
field of artistic research.
Layers of living in layers of time HD Video 04:30 min
Producer: Anita Synnestvedt
Music/sound: Mikael Bojén,
Land art installations: Marie Gayatri,
Poetry Reading: Lena Dahlén,
Medieval costume and performance: Eva Andersson,
Filmed material and Photos: Anita Synnestvedt, Royner Norén, Marie Gayatri
Marie Gayatri is working as a land art artist since the late 90s. She has done some 30
art projects worldwide and operates in parallel with educational programs where
the learning process draws inspiration from art in nature and explores the environment and sustainability concepts. Marie Gayatri has a teaching degree in arts as well
as a master degree in Visual Didactics.
Anita Synnestvedt has a PhD in archaeology and works at present as a coordinator
for the Heritage Academy at the University of Gothenburg and she is also involved in
the ongoing EU – project NEARCH which aims to explore the various dimensions of
public participation in contemporary archaeology and bring to the field new ways of
working and collaborating.
Poems and text from the Video
I´ m nobody! Who are you? (Emily Dickinson 1830 -1886)
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Layers of living in layers of time
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!
Sonnet 29 (William Shakespeare 1564-1616)
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
How dreary to be somebody!
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
How public like a frog
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
To tell one's name the livelong day
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
To an admiring bog!
Remember (Christina Rosetti 1830-1894)
Remember me when I am gone away,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Gone far away into the silent land;
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Sappho (ca 630 B.C. )
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us
Remember me when no more day by day
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Green Malin 1594 (Anita Synnestvedt)
Yet if you should forget me for a while
My name is Malin. They call me Green Malin. They accuse me of prostitution and theft.
They say I am not allowed to stay within the city of New Lödöse. Where shall I go, what
shall I do? I will have a child in some months. I will go to the forest outside the city walls, I
will try to find a shelter and maybe the father of my child will help even if I don´t think so.
Why is life so hard?
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.