The film (I min) Anna Where is Paulina Today? was made under auspices of the project “Art at the Movies” 1998, where seven artist were allotted one minute of screen time during the commercials in every movie theater owned by Swedish Film Industry in Sweden. All artists were offered a complete film crew and 35-millimeter film and the films were shown according to a rotating schedule.

My contribution was an experiment to use a model of narrative, probably invented by commercials – a one minute story. The film shows a morning meeting somewhere in Sweden. The meeting is modeled on an exercise in Swedish day care centers where the children, sitting in a circle, one after the other pick up a roll call doll and sing a welcome song. Here this event seems to take place at a company or perhaps a government agency, possibly a course for unemployed people. The dolls in the movie are based on the concepts of Rudolf Steiner schools, but here given individual features, something that is at odds with Steiner pedagogy – a pedagogy with direct roots to occultism and gnosticism.

In 2005 the film was re-configurated in an installation with the same title at Box Gallery in Gothenburg. The “mutated” waldorf-dolls used as props in the film were exhibited in a large acrylic glass box beside a series of embroideries depicting three of the actors. Commentary texts giving fragments connected to anthroposophy and the creator of waldorf-pedagogy – Rudolf Steiner – were projected close to a wall drawing of the title.

The objects and texts are meant to create sub-stories and layers of narration, different entrances and exits to the film. The time consuming method of the embroideriy and the “commentary track” dislocates the narrative of the film into a larger story that suggests an ongoing psychological or psychodynamic experiment.

*Exhibitions and screenings of *Anna, Where is Paulina Today

En biografi – och andra berättelser, Smålands Konstarkiv, Vandalorum, Värnamo 2013

En annan ordning/Another Order, Konsthall C, Stockholm 2008

Anna, Where is Paulina Today?, Teatergalleriet, Uppsala 2007 (solo exhibition)

Anna, Where is Paulina Today?, Galleri Box, Gothenburg (solo exhibition) 2005

Moderna Museet c/o Alma Löv Museum (group exhibition) 2003

Childhood/Barndom, Sundsvalls Museum 2003

Konstmobilen, touring group exhibition in Sweden, arranged by Moderna Museet, Stockholm 2002

Moderna Museet c/o BAC, Baltic Art Center, Visby 2002

Cave, Konstakuten, Stockholm 2000

Blick, Nordic film and video, Moderna Museet, Stockholm 1999

The Filmfestival of Gothenburg 1998

Svenska bilder, The Filminstitute, Stockholm 1998

Pineapple Gallery, Malmö (screening) 1998

The film Anna, Where is Paulina Today represented in .

the collection of Moderna Museet

and in Filmform archive

Reviews:

Linderborg, Åsa, ”Som om vi alla ville vara med”, Aftonbladet 30/4, 2007

Karlstam, Christina, ”Tack och lov att Bärtås är här”, Uppsala Nya Tidning, 22/4, 2007

Wrange, Måns and Pettersson, Gunilla, ”Videokonst i Sverige: Från alternativ till institution”, Bokförlaget Langenskiöld, SAK:s årsbok, Stockholm 2006