Colere
Anna Linder
OCTOBER 16 2021 – JANUARY 30 2022
With the exhibition Colere, Anna Linder returns to what was once the family’s place of residence from 1919 till 1964 in the village of Laisheden, Sorsele municipality, in Västerbottens interior. The project retells the story – full of contradictory sentiments of sorrow, gratefulness, anger and love – about the family household of Stenlunds torp, the ”odlingslägenhet” in western Laisheden. A odlingslägenhet is a plot of land leased by the Crown to whoever could take care of it and who lacked any land of their own. The residents had no right of ownership to the land they cultivated. This is a story of how the family will have to leave the place after decades of struggle to turn the barren land into fertile soil. In recent years, Anna’s visits to the place show us the surrounding area that nature has reclaimed – the birch trees, grass stumps, and the overall meagerness that the settlers never quite managed to conquer. Ruins are all that remains of the settlement that once housed a family of eleven children.
The project also seeks to understand colonization: inhabitation, construction, and cultivation on a close-up plane over a long period. The word colonization stems from the Latin Colere; reside, visit, practice, guard, or respect. In its imperative form, Cole urges respect and reverence towards the earth – the land that sustains us and cherish life. On the other hand, the French word Colére means anger and wrath.
About the artist
Anna Linder is born and raised in Storuman, Southern Lappland. Linder is an artist, curator and cultural producer working primarily with moving images. Their works – videos and films as well as installations have been exhibited at Moderna Muséet in Stockholm, ICA London, Borås Konsthall, Göteborg konsthall, Gallery Alkatraz in Ljubljana, Rotterdam film festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Arsenal Experimental in Berlin, among several other places.
Linder’s latest queer experimental film Spermahoran has purchased by Moderna Museet and added to the museums collections. The film was part of the research project conducted by HDK-Valand, Queer Moving Images, finished in March 2017. Currently Anna Linder is working with Colere, a film project, previously under the name “Kronotorpet – Laisheden”, as well as with the archive and platform SAQMI – The Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images created by Linder 2016-17. During 2021 Anna Linder was awarded the prestigious Dynamostipendiet by Konstnärsnämnden and the Cultural Scholarship of the city of Gothenburg for their work as an artist and long-standing effort to empower other artists.
