In English

Seabird 3 - Bed of Sorrow (2022)- Photo/Installation 

I lost my beloved in June 2022. He died of Covid19 after a five week fight for his life in the hospital. When he died I slept in the basement for weeks. It was the only place where we hadn't been together. I listened to the washing machine and the sounds from the house above me. I laid there and let the pain and sorrow wash through me. I couldn't exist in normal life to start with. In the basement there is no normal life going on normally, and it is also located under the surface. 

Maybe society should create specific places where grieving people can just lie down. They can listen to, and watch life going on around them. They would exist even though feeling as if they no longer existed. Grief would have a more visible and public place even if it would be protected. No one would be allowed to interrupt if the grieving person didn't invite them to.

Seabird 2 - The Assault (2022) - Short film - Official selection Sundsvall film festival 2022

Normally, the relationship between a psychologist and client is based on a feeling of trust and mutual understanding. A formal or informal agreement is entered. I pay you to help me. I trust you with my problems and thoughts and there is an agreement of silence. There are no other parties with interest in what happens in the room. I can choose to stop whenever I want to, and I only have to reveal as little or as much as I want to. In this relationship there is an inbuilt respect for your inner world.

When companies bring in business consultants for example when there are problems between managers and employees, this contract is broken while the element of vulnerability remains. Management and HR become (often absent) parties in the relationship. Employees are automatically at a disadvantage. Trust and freedom are suddenly no longer a given.

The film takes place in a closed conference room without windows, build in a cardboard box. Miniature teddybears are seated in a ring. The business consultant/psychologist is no longer present, but she has left her shoes, her laptop and her glasses. They remain where they have been left on the floor while what is left slowly turns into chaos.

The film illustrates the vulnerability in a situation where the employees are left behind with their feelings of chaos and confusion when the consultant has finished her mission. The employer/management are absent. Only a pair of shoes remain, turned away from the group of participants.

Artistic idea/Director: Åsa Jaktlund, Camera/Editing/Grade: Daniel Rundkvist

Closer - The secret (2013) - Installation

In an office cantine we secretly placed 9 cards - one each week- with topics of conversation. The card was placed in a numbered envelope with a blue silk ribbon wrapped around it.

We sat in the cantine ourselves and observed what happened when people found the cards.

The tenth card we placed in a frame, wrapped it and placed it among the pieces of art that were included in the annual art lottery.

Nobody chose the framed card. But there was a lot of talk about the cards. And perhaps they inspired to think about what is accepted to talk about around a lunch table at work.

Artistic idea: Åsa Jaktlund, Implementation: Åsa Jaktlund  Fredrik Eklöf

Closer - The Ferry (2013) Photo/Installation

When I lived in Stockholm I used to stop on my way home from work and watch the Finland ferries. You could stand at Katarinavägen and watch them just before departure. In the evening you could see through the windows where people were boarding and staff were getting everything ready. Some people are coming out of the shower, some are making beds, others are hanging up shirts. In every room and on all floors life is going on simultaneously. 

The ferry is a place where people can get very vulnerable. There is so much hope and expectations coming onboard. Hopes and dreams that perhaps are also enhanced by leaving the ordinary world behind.

I believe that many of these expectations are grounded in something deeply human. The need to feel joy, hope and excitement. The need for intimacy, being seen and loved. This comes to life in big or small dreams that you take onboard that night on the ferry, in this limited environment and during a brief amount of time. Often things didn't turn out as one hoped, and you come back disillusioned. Even if we all share these needs, people's dreams  are also deeply private and unique. We all have our own story to tell.

Artistic idea and direction: Åsa Jaktlund, Photography: Johanna Unander

Closer - The noticeboard (2013) - Installation

I placed a noticeboard by the entrance of my apartment building during two weeks. On the noticeboard I had created a "map of emotions". You could anonymously place a pin closest to the feeling you had the moment when you came in or out of the house. The noticeboard was up for two weeks and I took a photo of it every night before placing the pins in the middle again.  The map of emotion was built on research about how feelings are clustered, with free interpretation. 

"The noticeboard" is about closeness and distance and how we have chosen to live close to others (in a city), but often still with such big distances between us. Regardless of which I think it is something fine and something which should be respected deeply. I documented something that was very intimate and personal without the slightest intrusion in the lives of my neighbours.  Noone had to utter a word. Still we could see something beautiful - how the house was feeling - during these two weeks.