KVINNOHAMN — a story about longing
The exhibition was shown at Vänermuseet 2018, alongside the release of the book Kvinnohamn, inviting visitors to explore the blurred boundaries between myth and reality through visual art, archival material, and storytelling.
Kvinnohamn is about the mysticism of Lake Vänern, an aspect that disappears within the modern analytical view of the world.
Based on collected material from the historical archives, the antiquarian Lars Göran Nilsson and the artist Africa Coll have created the exhibition and the book Kvinnohamn, a story about longing, with full artistic freedom. The project is based on documented written and oral stories about magical female creatures in Lake Vänern. Poetry and reality are woven together. What is real and whose is the reality? It is up to each one to decide. We all live with different interpretations of reality.
Published 2018 by Vänermuseet, Lidköping.
Preface by Bengt af Klintberg.
Text by Bo Borg, Africa Coll and Lars Göran Nilsson.
Graphic form by Helena Larsdotter.
“We live in an age of hyper-reality, where the authentic is gradually being eclipsed by its endless representations, where every new layer of mediation stands between us and the natural world, where forgeries have so viciously attacked the original that they now reign victorious in its place, and as the forgeries themselves are relentlessly replicated we are left with infinite simulations of that which never existed”
Images from Kvinnohamn.
