{"id":34266,"date":"2025-12-08T11:20:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/?post_type=bonnier_exhibition&p=34266"},"modified":"2026-03-07T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:09:08","slug":"interview-with-olof-marsja","status":"publish","type":"bonnier_exhibition","link":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/en\/utstallning\/the-maria-bonnier-dahlin-foundation-grant-recipients-ar\/interview-with-olof-marsja\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Olof Marsja"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Interview with Olof Marsja<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Curator Annie Jensen (AJ) in conversation with Olof Marsja (OM)<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

AJ:<\/strong> You describe some of your works as characters and figures inhabiting a mysterious landscape. Could you tell us a bit more about this landscape and its inhabitants? Who are these characters and what do they want?<\/p>\r\n

OM:<\/strong> The landscape my characters inhabit lies in the shadow of exhausted identity politics. I\u2019ve ventured into the shadow because it feels like that\u2019s where I belong. Among those who accompany me are Den Frusne, Pea\u2019n\u2019Tjerry, and Fresh Mint. They serve as guides and guardians of their territories.<\/p>\r\n

AJ:<\/strong> The choice of materials is central to your work\u2014both in terms of how you find different types of materials and how you work with them. You talk about the inhabited history of these materials and how you try in various ways to highlight and reformulate it. Could you explain why this is important to you?<\/p>\r\n

OM:<\/strong> I\u2019m primarily drawn to organic materials because of their tactile quality, which I appreciate. They\u2019ve been handled by humans since time immemorial, whereas chemically processed or manufactured materials are, in a way, memoryless. Of course, this is a qualified truth. Regardless, it\u2019s important for me to mix organic and non-organic materials freely. Partly because of the different temporalities inherent in both the materials themselves and the techniques used to work them. This gives the sculptures different timelines, creating a certain ambivalence regarding their place in time and space.<\/p>\r\n

Reindeer fur, which I\u2019ve been working with over the past year, belongs to the first category. I like this material because you cannot avoid the fact that it represents an encounter with another animal and everything that entails. The fur carries a narrative, which the writer Linnea Axelsson captures in her epic Aednan<\/em> in the line: \u201cTo carry this animal body with you.\u201d The reindeer is something the S\u00e1mi must constantly relate to, for better or worse, both literally and metaphorically. But by combining the reindeer fur with industrially produced objects\u2014a sports sock or a piece of a plastic bag from Lidl\u2014it becomes part of a larger whole. What I\u2019m trying to get at is that these things do not exist in isolation but coexist.<\/p>\r\n

AJ:<\/strong> I experience your works as playful and humorous, yet at the same time filled with seriousness and something almost unsettling. It\u2019s hard to tell whether the faces of the sculptures are friendly or menacing. This makes me think of something you\u2019ve mentioned before\u2014that through your work you want to highlight and examine Sweden\u2019s colonial historiography, specifically how the S\u00e1mi people have been represented, as well as the indoctrinated racism that resulted from it. Could you elaborate on this element of darkness\/playfulness in your work?<\/p>\r\n

OM:<\/strong> I notice my choice of words may be slightly off. I don\u2019t mean exactly to illuminate the colonial historiography as such, but rather to process and work through what came in its wake\u2014shame, inferiority complexes, historical amnesia, and so on. To avoid getting stuck in this, which largely relates to personal grief and reflection, I use the playful. It has given me room to renegotiate and wrest power from the hands of the historians. At the same time, it is a history that has left concrete traces in people and in the land, hence the ever-present darkness. From another perspective, the dark and the playful are different ways for me to give my sculptures weight and agency. We enter the territories of my figures, and there their rules apply\u2014rules they will not relinquish lightly.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Utst\u00e4llning<\/p>\n\n\n\n