Utsikter_mot_undergången_dokumentation_AvestaArt_2021

The installation series Conceptions of Ruin is an attempt to linger on the idea of the unthinkable. To allow oneself a moment of fear. To act, in a sequence of events where a catastrophic ending is preventable. Or, to cope in a process that seems inevitable – without succumbing to grief or becoming paralyzed in horror. The installations are not providing a solution. Rather, they are trying to imagine an Afterwards, and a will to act in a Before. It’s about how those two concepts probably aren’t sufficient to describe possible courses of destruction, which could be sudden or slowly dripping or cyclical. Here, destruction is a term to describe either a social disaster or a personal state of illness. A headline or a secret. The installations seek a mood of quiet beauty and desolation. Different light sources are aimed at objects and scenes. The shadows cast create horizons, with recognizable forms from Swedish forests and landscapes: forms that are sometimes held hostage by nationalism, where the fear of a threat behind the horizon is redirected towards the stranger. The views portrayed in the installations are inspired by, but differ from, usual portrayals of a post-apocalyptic world. There are no ruins of human life, no signs of battle. Perhaps it is because this civilization is not in ruins, and the images are simply a panoramic view over the forest, next to a town. Or maybe because the installations are figurations of what lay in front of an anxious person, at the moment of contemplation. Together, they form a whole that consists of mixtures of after and before, of the stage and behind the curtain, of conceptions and ruins. Music by Dödsvarg/Jon Ekström