we were never autonomous

‘We were never autonomous’ was a poetic investigative fieldwork, between the years 2020 - 2021, in collaboration with Helsingborg Municipality and Visionsfonden.

The place - A space in Gåsebäck between the hostels, car washes and warehouses with heavily packed poisoned land, under the motorway between Helsingborg and Malmö.

Method - Get entangled, see, listen, reflect, understand the conflicts, connections and relationships as opposed to colonisation, exploitation, consumption.

Scientific grounding - In collaboration with an ecologist, 70% of the plants and 31 different species were identified. Here, the plants have been given space to do as they please because no one cared. The biodiversity is high. The plants heal and care for the destroyed soil and can teach us how we can work together in harsher, warmer and more polluted conditions.

Installation - Under a wild birch a memorial stone is placed with the inscription 'we were never autonomous'. Here we can remember that we are not an independent species and mourn the misunderstanding. There is a consolation in that.

Exhibition - Via Urban Window Gallery at Projektrum Hjärne 2021. Share the power of the margin in the form of a sound work, with those who never visit it. Take the periphery into the center with seed bombs from the site's wild plants.

Book - The place has an important signal value and the project is reported in book form, as a digital edition on Issuu. The project asks questions about how we relate to the spaces, to other species, urbanisation, ourselves. How humans and other species can coexist in public spaces that are relevant in new ways.