Gallery 01:8

CHANGING LANDSCAPES In the first decades of the 20th century, Sweden developed from an agrarian to an industrial nation. In the old agricultural society, people were at the mercy of nature – survival depended on surveilling and domesticating its forces. In the industrial era, nature was growingly viewed as a resource to exploit freely, not least through hydroelectric plants and industrialized mining. The natural resources of northern Sweden were considered especially interesting. This perspective contrasted sharply with the Sami perception of nature as an animate, living being. People who had lived for generations in these now increasingly desirable regions were forced to move or saw the sudden ravaging and change of their homelands.

The landscape of northern Sweden also attracted artists. As a consequence of urbanisation, nature had to be sought after, and was no longer part of daily life. In the outskirts of cities a kind of inbetweenness appeared, where the old merged with the new urbanity. In the changed landscapes, in the modern cities and their periphery, a more experimental approach to art’s motifs and techniques began to emerge.

Nearly a century separates the paintings in this gallery from Carola Grahn’s sculpture Horizon of Me(aning) from 2015/2023. Nature is physically present in the room through the stacked birch firewood. The work was first presented in 2015, in reaction to the many suicides committed in Sápmi. According to the artist’s instruction, the wood is stacked while holding a conversation about mental health. In line with a view of nature as being animate, the stories are embedded in the work and thereby live on.