Installation & performance, 2011-2012, Styrsö
It’s a sunny day. The birds are singing. The children are playing. And then there is another sound, the sound of a machine gun shooting in the distance. Suddenly there is a sound of a minor bomb somewhere. I was surprised the first time I experienced this absurd event but after a while I accepted it. It was bad luck that we had moved to a place where the military regularly does their standard exercises. It was only 25 days a year, it could be worse. And it got worse. The military handed in an application where they wanted to increase the amount of exercising days from 25 a year to 115 (and 70 nights). As a comment on the application I made a military figure of wood, plastic bags and clothes and put it on a small islet visible from my island and from the ferries passing by every hour. I also created a child that I attached in the arms of the military. My ambition was to remind people of the forthcoming presence of the military and to discover what emotions the installation caused, protective or threatening?