Interlocutors: Barb Macek (bm) and Anna Nygren (an)

Date: 18.08.2024

Location: Anna’s exhibition “hoppas tu blir fisk” at the Orangeriet in Skebobruk

bm: What is your equivalent to the ocean, or the lake, the river, in regard to fish; do you think of something as your habitat? Is it water, or maybe something else that has the qualities of water?

an: Mm, in a way I think it is water, because I think I love water much more than air, I feel much better in water than in air and on grounds because I like the way of moving in water, but also it can be frozen – there is unhappiness; so I need a water that is warm. My best memories of feeling relief is being in a warm water basin – not a bath tub, I don’t like bath tubs. But special basins, like basins that are connected to hospitals –

bm: and to Spas?

an: No, I don’t like Spas. But when you know you are going to a warm water basin, it feels like being free, and I can relax – I think it is the only place where I can relax.

bm: The sea, the ocean here is cold most of the time, isn’t it?

an: Yes, but the lakes are warm here sometimes, lakes with sweet water – so I am a sweet water fish. Because that is also warm.

bm: I remember the first time when you told me about the textile fish you are creating, you indicated the TEXT in the textile, and here [at the exhibition] I noticed you have these word games going on with the fish and the clothes – and that also the names of the fish are important.

an: Yes, maybe it is possible to say it like this: it is also language that is my water, my habitat. I do feel like home; but I think we wrote about this: the strange strangers, it is home but it is still a strange home. So the language and the words, they are my home but I also don’t understand them. They are always strange to me. We have this relation and we can play; being with the words, alone with the words I feel like I am at home and I am happy. But when other people come to the words and the language, then language needs to mean something and there is also the violence of language, and I don’t mean it’s violent that they mean something because the meaning is also a meaningful thing – and I like words having meanings – but not the fixed meaning. I like when the words are moving –

bm: – And have an ambivalence or even polyvalence

an: Yes, yes.

bm: And when others come into play, there is this force that you need to agree on the meanings, to come to an understanding. This is where the violence may come in –

an: Yes, and, also, it is suddenly possible to say something that is wrong, and you can use a wrong word, and then you could be punished for using a wrong word, like, it could really be embarrassing,

or people laugh at you when you use a wrong word, and also when you pronounce the word in a wrong way, you can also be laughed at.

bm: In one of your latest emails you write that clothes to you are complex and meaningful things, you mentioned the dress of sickness, madness, clothes as interfering and extension, clothes as safety and harm.

an: Maybe – it’s a very strange thing, maybe I can tell: I was 13 and I was hospitalised with eating disorders and there was a lot of things that I wasn’t allowed to do – but I was allowed to read fashion magazines. So I tried to sort of think / understand something about how to be in the world of fashion magazines, and I don’t think I really liked –

I always liked the dresses, there was always something with the dresses that I liked – but in also a painful way, like an almost masochistic way –

bm: You where attracted by them and at the same time –

an: – I always felt that they could also hurt me

bm: Mhm.

an: But I also sometimes in some way liked being hurt, I think we wrote about that – sometimes it feels like the only way for people to take care of me is hurting me

like I don’t know what’s good for myself.

And there is something with the hurt that it is in a way safe

bm: Because it is something familiar –

an: That it is familiar.

bm: And you know how it feels and how to relate to it

an: Yes.

And so I like the idea of the pleasure-pain, did I actually tell you about this translation thing – there is a text I read, by Walter Benjamin, it was about translation – and it said something about bread – about the French word pain and the German word Brot – they are totally different words but they both mean bread, and than I thought that there is also the English word pain – like the French word pain – and the German Brot is also very similar to the swedish Brott – meaning crime. That means, inside the bread, there is also pain and crime, and that is very much how it feels for me.

bm: Okay.

an: Like eating, living, being fed – it always feels also like pain and crime.

bm: Crimes – others do to you or that you are committing –

an: Both. Yes. So what I wanted to say with this is – there is the fish, the living thing – being fish, being free with the fish, being in the ocean with the fish, but the fish is also –

I remember being supposed to eat the fish, and I remember eating fish, and I do eat fish, and I think about the fish being eaten, the fish as –

bm: a dish – Tisch

an: Yes, you wrote that, yes. And also the ocean as a fearful place – I think the dying ocean, fish dying, I think about human beings dying in the ocean. I think the fish and also the dresses – both are always a metaphor, but a metaphor is also not a metaphor, a metaphor is never a metaphor, a metaphor is also always a body, and a word, and a crime, and a word, and something that you can’t understand what it is.

– I am looking for my scissors now, for my new piece – this is – I like collecting pictures and – here it is – I like the book you gave me, and I am making this new piece, here you are supposed to put a candle, and I found this one – it is like a mountain of glass –

bm: A rock –

an: Yes, it’s a rock, and I made this eye – this is a fish eye and this is a human eye – there is something with “eye/I” that I think is violent and interesting – I think of glass eyes, and the fish eye – you know, the camera thing –

bm: Ah, yes –

an: It feels like when talking everything is moving – now it is a fish eye, and the fish eye is crying – it is crying rain; there are also like in French – pleurer, le pleur –

Do you know French?

bm: I learned it at school but I forgot most of it; I only remember some words and phrases –

an: When I work with language I like being in a state of constant learning – and not knowing the language – I am also not good at French at all – I also know only a few words – but I also like the not knowing as a meaningful thing – because then it’s like everything is a spell, it’s magic, its a word and a world.

bm: I think this is a very good final statement.