Elina Nilsson

Photo documentation from an exhibition in the Cathedral of Gothenburg.

----To be watched in HD, if possible!----In the first cut a group of people enter the room, they take their seats in the audience. In the next cut the audience has split up and some of the persons have entered the stage. This group of people consists of one and the same person duplicated several times by using projections. One person is connected to one layer. In the process of duplicating her and her actions, the room is created. The swedish title "Ta plats (annan plats)" has different layers of meaning, the direct translation being "Take place (other place)". On one hand it refers to "take place" as in something occurring, but it could also mean "take a seat" and even "take up space" or "stand out".

Installation view. Video shown in the same room as it was made.

In the beginning I had a passionate relation to a coat, the bird coat. I would tell you, it was an intense love affair. But as all love affairs of this certain kind, it did not last, and I was left lost without it. In my mourning I found comfort in the thought of its Resurrection.

The first piece out of two, where I, in the process of remembering the bird coat and reaching for its Ressurection, at the same time am spiritualizing the material and materializing the spiritual.

During the period of the man with pregnant belly I was consumed with the thought of balance and unbalance. I came to think of balance as perfection and something that had to do with duality and unity. Unbalance would be its indispensable opposite, maybe the opposing force of the balance that creates, balance. I thought of its form and gave the man with the belly an unbalanced body balancing. He tells me about his unattainable desires.

"I was almost dying of thirst and asked a soldier if I could get some water to drink out of his bottle. He came towards me and I thought I would get water, but instead he opened his fly and peed in my face. He did it in front of everybody, so that everybody would see." // The soldier said to her: "Well, drink, then!" ------ This text and the quotes in the piece "Damaged goods" is collected from the swedish book "Du kan glömma bort ditt eget barn" by Christina Wahldén.