Den nya hjorden, 2017

Den Nya Hjorden/ The New Hird

Tensta Konsthall 1.6–24.9 2017 

Conversation between Ylva Westerlund, 
Emily Fahlén, and Asrin Haidari.

Asrin Haidari: Tell us about the title The New Hird.

Ylva Westerlund: The New Hird can be read as planet Earth with an old spelling, but also as a flock. My drawings and paintings sometimes contain a futuristic perspective—science fiction that takes place in a new era. The title also appears on the front cover of one of my cartoon series, in a story that is set on the Järva Field. Ideas about the “new” can also refer to utopian notions about the “new Man”, the new human being – an ideal. The English title, The New Hird, has a somewhat different meaning than the Swedish; it calls to mind the word “herd”, which means “flock”, but misspelt. “Hird” is an old Norse and Anglo-Saxon word referring to a personal band of warriors, a troop of guards that appear as creatures in the drawings.

Emily Fahlén: How was it that you started working with cartoons?

YW: I started when I was a child—it was a way for me to begin to draw. I was inspired by classic cartoonists like Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, and tried to imitate them. The cartoon format has permeated how I draw; I found my own figures, characters, and abilities—it became a way to visualize things and to think. There is a natural connection in cartoons between text and image, and you are able to incorporate a lot into a single frame. I’m also interested in how the so-called Situationists used pop culture in the 1960s—in how they would do a kind of détournement and turn material over to see another side of it, or put it together with something unusual, or unexpected. The Situationists’ strategy was to confront consumerism and question a system through rereading it and finding its cracks.

AH: In the exhibition, we encounter different kinds of environments: Tensta and the surrounding Järva Field, the industrial community of Husum, and a new world in the process of dissolution. Why have you chosen to link these places together? What do these suburban and provincial narratives have in common?

YW: I think it’s partly that these areas were built during a particular time, when an optimistic attitude toward development prevailed. They have had a function: in the small industrial communities, for example, in relation to the employer and the organization of labor. I’d say that their position is different today: both the provincial towns and the suburbs have lost some of their identity because they no longer function as models for a social idea; the functions of welfare society have been dismantled and social services are moving to the commercial centers. Out-migration is palpable in the old industrial communities, whereas the opposite is more likely in the suburbs. At the same time, since people no longer find themselves “in the midst of development”, it may be possible to redefine places, to create a space to think differently. Or we must do this in some way and so self-organization becomes more tangible. We approach a kind of borderland, which is negative in many different ways, but it also offers possibilities…

EF: The borderland you talk about is evident in The New Hird. In your science-fiction world, society has reached its peak, and a new sort of Big Bang has occurred as a consequence of our consumption and our unsustainable relationship to natural resources. Your drawings certainly constitute an ecological critique, but are the images only dystopic?

YW: My narratives have different timelines and contain elements of dreams and fantasy. They contain a free movement of thought. In the series The New Hird I refer to the established idea of the Big Bang as a singular event, when all time began and from which all development proceeded. Speaking in purely biological terms we are on the way towards altering the role of evolution—we can change our genes, for instance—so in some way our fundamental preconditions have changed. Gas clouds or the fumes we see in the images come from the motorway and recreate a new kind of primeval state, like during the Big Bang. In my images we see it happen again, but now in reverse. You don’t know exactly what this is the beginning or the end of. I’m interested in portraying a breaking point; through image and text I try to get at something that isn’t quite right, that doesn’t really correlate—a crack, a fissure. You could find a “third” plan. “The third” is what I find interesting in feminism and in ecological debates—a relationship which opposes a dualistic world view.

EF: Yes, the idea that a catastrophe need not be entirely negative—it can also be the beginning of something new. I’m reminded of a book I have at home called Paradise Built in Hell. It’s a study of what happens when civilizations fall apart as a result of natural catastrophes—tragedies in themselves—but these events also make possible a wholly new situation where people help each other and practice solidarity.

YW: Yes, the idea of a kind of cleansing through catastrophe sounds both frightening and appealing; it contains both religious and revolutionary tendencies. But, yes, perhaps it could be interesting if the situation we observe in my work could also convey an awakened solidarity with natural forces, or the catastrophe, if you will. That the event functions as an opening for another, inclusive, relationship to processes in nature which we also are part of and influence. And are influenced by. 

EF: It’s also interesting how you work with toxins. It’s not either exclusively bad; I mean, on the one hand, it can be devastating, but on the other, toxins can also offer possibilities, as for example, in hormone therapy, in medicines, etc.

YW: Exactly— if you think beyond simple negative consequences, it can be a potential opening for another relationship. I have also used flooding as an idea for this phenomenon. Fluidity and leakage have such different connotations even though they describe a similar movement. Fluidity has positive associations: a fluid economy, development and progress. Leakage, on the other hand, is considered to be something very negative—as in menstruation, waste, pollution—something uncontrolled. Nevertheless, the words describe the same things. 

It’s possible to trace feminist ideas about what is given value and what isn’t, but also in relation to nature—all the systems we create to justify how we use nature and how nature should serve human society. I think we have to abandon thoughts of controlling nature, so that leakage becomes something we cannot control or protect ourselves from. Instead we must embrace the condition of things and the inevitable—for example, that we can take responsibility for 

pollution that is released—it’s already in the ground, it’s here. We can’t deny the waste we’ve been involved in producing. 

AH: And finally to land directly in our own immediate present…Just now Förbifart Stockholm (Bypass Stockholm) is being built. It is an extensive infrastructural project to create a connecting motorway to relieve the pressure of traffic into the central parts of Stockholm. We see how the landscape of Järva Field is changing, being strained, and environmentally exposed by this project. You also take up Förbifarten and its waste products in your work.

YW: Yes, my own experiences linked to places where I live my everyday life often form the basis for my work. I am often on the Järva Field, both because I have my studio there and because of my interest in bird watching. So purely geographically it’s impossible for me not to relate to the road projects that are going on in the area. They have a loud voice which often drowns out the songs of birds. Motorways and car traffic are often described as prerequisites for free movement, exchanges between districts, and development. But to an extent, in my experience they have the opposite effect, creating barriers, stemming the mobility of people, plants, and animals, and hindering spontaneous patterns of movement. Car traffic to shopping centers is what benefits from more roads—roads generally function as economic arteries. Another aspect to all this is that making roads doesn’t seem to favor human contact—taking yourself between two flats in Tensta by car is much more complicated than driving to Barkarby or Kista. It’s difficult not to see car traffic as an educational project meant to point out important values in life. Had Pink Floyd’s The Wall been written today, it would probably have been called “The Road”.

Emily Fahlén and Asrin Haidari 

works at Tensta konsthall.