TILL MOSKVA, June
2001

Falk Asa Lipka, Bystrom Helena, Claesson Nils

Opening: June 15 (Friday), 2001 18.00

The title of the exhibition refers the viewer to A. Chekhov’s play "The Three Sisters". The idea of the exhibition can be defined as Roland Barth’s "nostalgic desire" about something you have never had and will never reach, but it lives in your memory. So, Chekhov’s three sisters are remembering their past life in Moscow they have never experienced, dreaming to "come back" to that life of theirs. The exhibition of the four Swedish artists – Asa Lipka Falk, Helena Bystrom and Nils Claesson – is dedicated to this eternal longing for unattainable "future in the past". "Nostalgia" of this kind unites all the video works of the exhibition "Till Moskva".

Asa Lipka Falk transforms poetic images into video films, playing with light and involving the viewer into this game.

Nils Claesson deals with the old films of the 50s, which he converts to video format, adding musical accompaniment. The artist makes the images "blurred", getting the effect of instability and unsteadiness. He tries to tune up the human memory to a nostalgic wave, showing the fragments of the old films as certain images of the "Golden Age", which has gone long time ago and is never to come back.

Helena Bystrom’s work deals with the examination of the human existence through perception, trying to find self-identity.

The project is curated by Elisabeth Haitto Connah, a member of the Association of National Art Critics; she organised a number of exhibitions in Sweden and abroad.

The exhibition is being held with the help of the Swedish Institute, The Swedish Embassy in Moscow, and Finnair.

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia