Blå fiktioner

John Willgren
Exhibition
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Along the coast of Norrland there are several paper mills owned by SCA, which is Sweden's largest producer of paper and wood products. The finished products are sent by cargo ship down to Europe. The vessels are named after the mills where the production takes place, one of which is called "SCA Tunadal". It is registered in Cyprus and has "Limassol" as its home port. The boat symbolizes a Swedish mill's connections to a tax haven in the Mediterranean.

The two ports, Tunadal and Limassol, have been painted on the stern of the cargo ship and brought together in the fictions of global shipping.

The exhibition shows a model of the ship “SCA Tunadal” in scale 1: 250. During a stay in Cyprus, I photographed the model as it floated in the port of Limassol. A port in which thousands of ships are registered, but which they will never enter.

The works in the exhibition deal with national identity on the seas, reflected in the ships that operate there. A series of works is based on the Liberia-registered cargo ship "Debussy". The video Play of the waves shows Claude Debussy's orchestral work “La mer” in dialogue with the waves on a beach.