KAJSA DAHLBERG

20 MINUTES (FEMALE FIST)
2005
Video, single channel projection, sound, 20′

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN / A THOUSAND LIBRARIES
2006
Book piece in an edition of 1000 copies

In my work I have been investigating the boundaries of “the public”, its narratives and representations. I’ve been wanting to find strategies for discussing, not only the organization and representation of public space, but also a desire to locate spaces or instances that open up the possibility of individual agency and collective transformation. In A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries this could be read on many levels: through Woolf’s attack on the patriarchal system, the readers response to her text, the readers relation to the library as an institution, etc. A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries is a compilation of all the marginal notes made by readers in the library copies of Virginia Woolf’s 1929 pamphlet A Room of One’s Own in libraries across Sweden. The piece is also an analogy to the content of the book were Woolf, using Mary Beton as her alter ego, is searching for female representation throughout the history of literature. She is astonished by the endless and peculiar representations of women written by men. Throughout the book she is describing, not only the search for a literature written by women, but also the conditions under which this literature was written.

With reference to groups like the Zapatistas, the writers’ collective Wu Ming, the illusive identity of Luther Blissett, as well as many other collective and/or clandestine groups who mask their faces in order to become politically visible, 20 Minutes (Female Fist) is an interview with an activist from the Copenhagen lesbian milieu, filmed with the lens-cap left on the camera. The interviewee begins by talking about pornography and about the creation of separatist rooms. About halfway into the film she goes on to speak, in more general terms, about the possibilities for being different in today’s society. The film opens and concludes with a long silent scene from a public square in Copenhagen.
I became involved with this activist group because I was interested in the way they worked politically, whilst attempting to stay outside of already existing political frameworks. In their struggle to fight repressive structures they are defining themselves in primarily negative terms, by saying: we are not Anarchists; we are not Feminists; we are not Marxists, etc. This was an important and interesting paradox to me: how can you create an identity for yourself, while simultaneously avoiding being defined from the outside? For this project, the notion of knowing only what you are not became the starting point for an urge to create new identities, new languages, and ultimately, the possible means to change residing structures.
(K.D.)

A Room of One’s Own was originally published by Hogarth Press, England, October 1929. Produced with the support of Iaspis and Index.

KAJSA DAHLBERG (1973, Göteborg, SE) graduated from The Art Academy in Malmö in 2003. For the past year she has participated at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, where she currently lives. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions and biennials such as the 1st Athens Biennial 2007, Prague Biennial 3 in 2007, The Royal College of Art, London 2007, Chelsea Art Space 2007, Momentum, Moderna Muséet in Stockholm 2004 etc. Her first large solo show was organized by Index, Stockholm in 2006.