This new exhibition comes from a meeting and a journey. The two artists, Anna Järvinen and Petra Lindholm had been hypothetically pencilled in to meet for years, since the early 2000s, when Järvinen was in the band Granada and it was mooted that Lindholm would make a video for them. In the end, they finally met in 2016 at a group exhibition at Hangmen Projects entitled Women Don’t Paint Very Well, which they were both participating in. It was then that they started discussing their shared heritage. Järvinen was born in Finland, whereas Lindholm grew up Finno-Swedish in Finland, so both found themselves between two countries and languages. As a result, they planned a trip to Helsinki, and the video and audio clips from that journey, fragmented and warped through the artistic process, became this exhibition.

Stephen McKenzie of Hangmen says: “From there, the first encounter at hangmenProjects, they became interested in their common ground, a distant relationship to their own identity because of language. Similar feelings but from the opposing directions, Petra being Finland Swedish, growing up in Finland with Finnish as a second language and now living in Sweden speaking Swedish with a Finnish accent. Anna born in Finland but has grown up in Sweden, where her second language has become her first. An investigation into this dilemma has been the base of the collaboration. After a false start, a trip to Helsinki was organised without any clear plan, a night in a hotel and the ferry back to Stockholm.”

The exhibition opens today, Friday August 24 at 17:00. There will be a live music performance by Tapio Viitasaari, Anna Järvinen and Christian Sandell at 19.30.

Tur & Retur, Aug 24 – Sep 22, Hangmen Projects, Ringvägen 86