Åsa Elzén
Åsa Elzén
Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration
or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge /
Skogen kallar – Ett oändligt kontaminerat samarbete eller
Dansandet är en form av skogskunskap
– Extension #2 at The Experimental Field, Accelerator, SU
– Extension #1 In Forest Intervals
Notes on a Fallow – The Fogelstad Group and Earth /
Träda – Fogelstadgruppen och jord
– A Growing Fallow Archive / Ett växande träda-arkiv
– Biography of a Fallow / En trädas biografi
– Transcript of a Fallow / Avskrift av en Träda
– Fogelstad Fågelstad Fågelsta Fågelholk Fågelbo
– The Other School / Den andra skolan
– A Growing Archive on the Women’s Barn and Livestock
School at Fogelstad / Ett växande arkiv över Kvinnliga
Ladugårdsutbildningen vid Fogelstad
– A Step to the Side / Ett steg åt sidan
– A Growing Peace with the Earth Collection
– Transcript of Transcripts: Elin – Bang /
Avskrifter av avskrifter: Elin – Bang
– Why do things when you could leave it? – An attempt,
an in-between land / Varför gör man saker då man kunde
låta bli? – Ett försök, ett gränsland
While I am trying to get to know Fredrika, I am always
– Memory of an Event I (Dear Honorine / Dearest Signe)
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Scandinavian journey 1795 re-traced
YES! Association/Föreningen JA!
– A New Spelling of a Street – A tribute to Audre Lorde
– All that you touch You Change. All that you Change
– (art)work(sport)work(sex)work
– Zyklische Gesellschaftsreise
A Growing Archive about the Women’s Barn and Livestock School at Fogelstad
Ett växande arkiv över Kvinnliga Ladugårdsutbildningen vid Fogelstad
work in dimensions variable, 2020–ongoing
The Women’s Barn and Livestock School at Fogelstad was run by Maren Holebakk, who in the early 1930s walked all the way from the West coast of Norway to Fogelstad together with a friend. Or perhaps, she was rather running away from a patriarchal home in search of a community where she could live a queer life in peace with the earth. She found this queer community at Fogelstad where she participated in both the Women’s Barn and Livestock School and the Women’s Citizen School. She stayed at Fogelstad all her life, working as ”barn forewoman" and as teacher at the Barn and Livestock School. Maren was also an artist. When out working the fields she collected clay from the grounds. From the clay she sculpted portraits of people she met at Fogelstad, lovers, friends, co-workers, refugees during the war, and especially of her students. Maren liked the quality of unburnt clay, the direct contact with dried earth, and didn’t fire her sculptures. This makes them fragile, and seemingly, the majority are lost. But recently, some of Maren’s photo albums appeared, one of them full of small photographs of the lost sculptures, many depicting students at the Women’s Barn and Livestock School. That fact that the sculptures were never burnt and that so many are lost, simultaneously bring to the fore the elusiveness of queer pasts and its marginalization in the writing of history.
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above and below:
Maren Holebakk's private photo album with photographs of her sculptures. 1930s – 40s. Photographs from the album are placed on a school desk from the Women Citizen’s school at Fogelstad. Several sculptures depict students at the Women’s Barn and Livestock School, marked on the back with names, or only "student".
Most sculptures are probably lost as the unburned clay makes them fragile, or they might not have been valued and thrown away. As it has been difficult to find information about the Women’s Barn and Livestock School at Fogelstad, the photographs of the mostly disappeared sculptures give us fragments of the context at the same time as an evasive past is portrayed.
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four last image below, details of:
Glass vitrine containing:
-Notebook belonging to Elisabeth Tamm.
-Maren Holebakk’s private photo album. Many photographs depict her life together with the other students when attending the Women’s Barn and Livestock School in 1932. Desires and collaborations in and with the earth at Fogelstad.
-List of unknown female names. Found among Maren Holebakk’s left behind papers.
-Book with the title ”Fogelstad”, regarding the livestock at the farm, found among Maren Holebakk’s left behind papers.
-Maren Holebakk’s private photo album. Most of the photos seem to be from the late 50s, when Maren had already worked for a long time as a barn forewoman, teacher at the Women’s Barn and Livestock School at Fogelstad and leased the entire farm. The photographs mainly depict her life as a teacher and show different tasks that the students carried out.