Page 8 - VEM ÄR DIN MAMMA

PREFACE
I think about mothers. Mothers that I met when
I was growing up. I think about what they meant to me. That in a way they were like my secret he- roines. Full of knowledge about life. I remember the joy of the tiniest little insight into their private sphere. A jewellery box, a handbag, a bathroom cabinet. The world grew. They all brought me something that I carry with me to this day, even those who merely sat quietly at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in their hand.
I now know that my fascination with them was based in the desire of children to understand the world around them. That it was not just about them being mothers, but about them be- ing adults, and women. The desire to understand is fundamental and a natural development for a growing child. A survival instinct that demands role models.
But the world does not stop turning just because we grow up. It changes constantly, sometimes perhaps too quickly, though maybe often so slowly that we barely notice it. And then suddenly one day the world is entirely different, and we need to have another look. To understand again. And again.
When Astrid and David come to visit Fröslunda, it is their ambition to try to see and understand the place. A place that is new to them, which has a past and a present, qualities and challenges. Establishing contact with those living in the area is crucial for the assignment. Residents who have lived their whole lives or perhaps merely a single day in Fröslunda, who speak hundred different languages and are aged between zero and hund- red. Astrid and David approach with a question as a basis, one that will help them to observe and understand. A question that is universal and that anyone could relate to. A question that bears meaning.
The question is important and pertinent. It’s no good simply asking it on the streets, com- munication is essential, to establish contact, an encounter. The camera is decided as the tool, and a temporary outdoor studio is set up in the town square, with the expressed aim of establishing
contact. Come and get your photo taken! Giving and taking. An encounter.
There are plenty of encounters. The queue stretches across the square in Fröslunda. The camera unites. The camera incites conversations. The image of Fröslunda grows, develops, changes.
And then there was my mother. As old as Fröslunda itself, she grew up in a new build, two-room apartment at the top of Tallåsvägen 11F together with her mother, father and young- er brother. The bus stop by the front door. The kitchen with no freezer. The hall with the bureau, handed down for generations, full of tiny every- day treasures. Working class, social democratic parents who sang in choirs and were involved
in trade unions, who built a cottage outside of town and who neither pursued a driver’s licen- ce, nor a single drop of alcohol. Swedes of the folkhem-era, “the People’s Home”. Dependable Swedes with a rucksack full of moral values. Or to put it simply: adults who wanted to build a new and improved society, for themselves as well as for their children. Just as parents in Fröslunda, (and the rest of the world for that matter), have always wanted.
Who is your mother?
Josefine Bolander
Commander, Public Art, Eskilstuna Municipality
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