ISLAND OF LIGHT 2022
ARTISTS
LIGHT WAVES
Paul Friedlander / England
Location 8
“Spinning Light Waves” dance in ever changing evanescent colour, weaving galaxies out of light filaments. Paul Friedlander returns to Smögen with a group of mesmerising kinetic light sculptures.
Paul Friedlander is a light sculptor and scientific artist, raised in Cambridge on a diet of relativity, cosmology and contemporary art. He studied physics at the Sussex University. It was a visit to a great exhibition of kinetic art at the Hayward Gallery in London that inspired him to switch direction. After completing his physics degree he went on to take another in Fine Art at Exeter College of Art. After graduating for a second time there was a lull as he came to terms with the realisation the art world was not yet receptive to the idea of scientific artists. He took a long detour into stage lighting and stage design. His main area of interest was avant-garde music and this proved a great training and source of inspiration for much of his later work where the emphasis has often been on the creation of large scale and ephemeral site-specific installations. Paul Friedlander’s amazing kinetic sculptures have been fascinating audience all around the world, with exhibitions on four continents, in more than twenty countries. He has been awarded prestigious prizes for his artwork in Japan and USA.
Escape the nightmare
Lena Mattsson / Sweden
Location 5
Four monumental site-specific synchronized video-mapped projections on a boathouse. The work is viewed from all sides of the house and illuminates issues surrounding the constant cycle of life and death. Newly composed music by Conny C-A Malmqvist, Sweden.
Lena Mattsson is a visual artist whose work encompasses a range of media, primarily video, performance art and mixed media installations. She has had numerous exhibitions and screenings in Sweden and internationally. With a background in painting, she frequently alludes to art history in her work, but also to cinema and popular culture. While renowned for her both poetic and materially distinct layering and saturating of light and narrative, she is also recognized for her highlighting and challenging of societal injustices and conflicts, often by way of her own embodied performance. Through the interlacing of highly personal experiences with those of the most deeply afflicted, the works of Lena Mattsson expose the indispensable conjunction of life and art.
Unexpected Visit
Lena Mattsson / Sweden
Location 6
Lena Mattsson projects life's wobbly metaphorical ladder onto a granite wall on Smögen-bryggan. Newly composed music by Conny C-A Malmqvist, Sweden.
Lena Mattsson is primarily a video and performance artist though she started her career with painting. There are numerous references in her work to art history and to the world of films. Mattsson has shown her films and video installations in a number of exhibitions around the world, such as Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö Art Museum, Nordic Watercolour Museum, Sweden, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland, Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark, National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Metropolitan Art Museum, Pusan, South Korea and many more.
Refufish
Matej Bizovičar / Slovenia
Location 3
Content-wise the “Refufish” (org. title “Ribogunci”) project echoes the contemporary refugee crisis, while the artist has used a colourful flock of fish to symbolize the refugees, fish that with their freedom of movement across the world seas represent just the opposite.
Matej Bizovičar graduated painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, under the direction of prof. Gustav Gnamushu. In addition to painting, he is engaged in sculpture, spatial layouts and the production of unique artistic interior designs. Since 1993 Matej has been active in artistic and social processes at AKC Metelkova City in Ljubljana. He is one of the artists who have been involved in the creative process creating several times awarded Hostel Celica in Ljubljana. Matej is also involved in the Radio Student, being co-author of over fifty radio plays produced on this radio station.
ETERNITAS
Teresa Mar / Austria
Location 9
A Huge Rock at the bay of the Ocean - Water and Stone. Minerals and Water - forming the sediments that sculptured our world. Light - The invisible element - Which is the (Eternal) Source - The Spark of Life. “Eternitas” will underlie the interplay between the Rock - The Ocean - The Air - The Earth and us.
Teresa Mar locates the transportation of the message of her images into the open space via light-projection and digital print-media. Innovative forms of representation as an answer to the modern, large scaled architecture which uses boldly applied new materials as well as techniques. As an interesting consequence also places far from metropolis may experience a new positioning. She works as artist since 1997. Mar lives in Vienna and Barcelona.
Fractions of Collateral Damage
Rune Guneriussen / Norway
Location 11
The intimacy we once had to nature is undoubtedly endangered. This includes our knowledge about nature, and how we can harvest from it. This knowledge that has been accumulated through the whole of human development through involvement with nature is now close to eradication. How can we find our way back to this life of necessary intimacy?
Rune Guneriussen is an artist working in the transition between installation and photography. As a conceptual artist he works site specific, primarily in nature.The work on objects started in 2005, and has been photographed on locations all over Norway. The long oneman work on an large scale installation is a process triggering the artistic genom. This process involves the object, story, space and most important the time it is made within. It is an approach to the balance between nature and human culture, and all the sublevels of our own existence. The work is made solely on site, and the photographs represents the reality of the installation itself. Guneriussen lives and works in eastern Norway.
underworld II
Aleksandra Stratimirović / Sweden
Location 7
“Underworld” is a spatial installation in the form of luminous forms depicting an imaginary tiny undersea settlement. The project aims to put attention onto sensitive sea life and its fragile environment. Forms are made using the disposed fishing materials collected from the sea bottom.
Soundscape by Leonel Kaplan / Argentina
Aleksandra Stratimirović is active in the world of art and light with the professional experience of more than 25 years in this field. In 2019 she was awarded with Great Merit Award in Sweden and in 2022 highly commended by the Women in Lighting Jury for her achievements in the field of light art. Stratimirović has a broad knowledge and understanding of light and lighting technologies. She is the author of the series of temporary and permanent light-art installations for numerous public places in Sweden and abroad. In recent years Stratimirović artworks have been included in exhibitions at NOOR Riyadh, Nobel Week Lights, on the Swedish National Museum, the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Museum of Architecture and Design, Ljubljana and various institutions in Sweden, Singapore, U.S.A., Argentina, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Japan, Slovenia, Serbia, Albania, Romania.
REFLEkTION
Catrin Edvardsen / Sweden
Location 10
Dance production “Reflektion”, is about life´s Yin & Yang and the reflection with insights. It is an installation that consists of a dance film that takes place by, in and out of water. The film is projected on Kleven rock, with a live dance performance in front; In collaboration with Dans Poolen and the participation of students from Sinclair Dans School, students from Culture Schools from Sotenäs and from Culture & Music School from Vänersborg. Mikael Wåhleman has produced the film.
Catrin Edvardsen is a dance teacher and has a bachelor degree of arts. She has been active in Sweden and Norway for 30 years. 2018, Silent disco (student, Rotterdam), Island of Light 2019, Part of the international dance festival STEP, 2020
WHAT DO YOU SEE WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED?
Pako.nao / Serbia
Location 2
For the young Serbian Pako.nao duo this is unique collaboration with 220 School Children from Smögen's and Kungshamn's Primary Schools, (age 6-12). To create animated projection inspired by the sea life. Main characters in this playful story are fantasy sea creatures invented by children, with the special touch and life sparkles animated by Hana and Nebojša.
Hana Piščević and Nebojša Resanović are artists duo from Belgrade, Serbia. They create playful artworks, spaces and places. Pako.nao designs, illustrates and animates things that make them feel curious and sometimes they even build things with their hands. They’ve written, directed and edited couple of films, made a bunch of furniture out of wood and clay, and a long time ago one of them published a book while the other competed at skateboarding contests. They are passionate about nature and sports so they tend to put those curves, motion and asymmetry in their work. Their name 'Pako Nao' comes from the Serbian word 'Naopako' which means 'Upside-Down' but they cut the word in half, since they are a duo, and changed the order of the syllables. Most important part of their work is to play!
metaf(or)isk
Students from the Audiovisual Program
Dalarna University / Sweden
Location 4
“Metaf(or)iskt” gives the fish a chance to see what it can catch right in the center of the fishing village. The shark takes a moment and tries its luck with a fishing rod!
METAMORFOS
Students from the Audiovisual Program
Dalarna University / Sweden
Location 1
“Metamorfos" reflects on the dynamic between the moment and eternity. Both grand and minimalistic, this work offers a quiet moment for the mind’'s own interpretative power.
Bohuskust
OUR SERVICES
Svante Lysén / Sweden
Location 12 | OPEN SKY CINEMA
Sept 8th & 10th 21:00
Sept 9th & 11th 22:30
“Bohuskust - A moody paradise". The soul of Bohus Coast and it´s nature through the eyes and experiences of a Kayaker
Svante Lysén is a photographer and videographer. Has for many years lectured around the country with slides that end with atmospheric slideshows. The lectures are usually about remote places in the taiga and the Arctic, mainly about three year-long wilderness stays in Canada, northern Spitsbergen and eastern Greenland. Lysén likes to mix animals, plants and landscapes with nature experiences and life in the wilderness.
Karin and Sixten - Smögen, Life and the Sea
Stefan Quinth / Sweden
Location 12 | OPEN SKY CINEMA
Sept 8th & 10th 22:30
Sept 9th & 11th 21:30
The film is a story about the sea and fishing, and about people on the island of Smögen in Bohuslän. On Smögen, the bedrock has been ground and shaped round by the constant movement of the water. In the same way, the people on the island have been shaped to survive in one of the most unlikely places to live in Sweden. Stefan is the project manager for the film about Sixten and Karin, which was produced together with seven other filmmakers. They are LaVonne Quinth, Claes Andrén, Sarita Eliasson, Mathilda Segedahl, Svante Lysén as well as Bernhard Pausett and Elisabeth Rosvold.
Stefan Quinth, together with his wife LaVonne, has been documenting and describing nature and people since the mid-70s. Their work has taken them through tropical forests, desert heat, up the mighty glaciers but also to the meadows and paddocks of their homeland. Over the years, they have produced many films for Sweden's Television, for schools, different organisations and companies.
island of light soundtrack
Wilhelm / Sweden
Island of Light Soundtrack
Wilhelm’s music has been part of Island of Light since the start in 2018, both composing new sounds tailor made for the festival and remixing existing releases to fit the exhibition. The music that the visitors will hear during Island of Light has its foundation in the “After darkness, light” project that was created during 2011-2013 - and has since developed in tandem with the festival. How deep the darkness goes in our lives journey, there is always glimpses of light - hope - that draws us away, sometimes just subtle but slowly to something beautiful beyond the grief. These themes of darkness/light is an essential part of Wilhelm’s music.
Gothenburg-based musician Johan Lager started to record instrumental music in early 2011 under the moniker Wilhelm and have since released a handful of albums. He’s also made music for short movies, commercials, documentaries etc. The foundation of Wilhelm's music is simple melodies, soaked in guitars and textures of sounds, electronic loops and drums - creating his own world of sound.
