Hope It Will Not Terrify
2016
HD-video 12 mins color/sound, pigment print.—Thank you for answering my questions so kindly. I was hoping to join a gathering Saturday evening but I was hindered by the Sun.
On June 6th, 1973 a short letter was sent to the newly founded RFSL Umeå in the north of Sweden. The local branch of the Swedish federation for LGBTQ rights was the organisation’s northernmost location and represented not only Västerbotten and Norrbotten, but also parts of Ångermanland and Lappland—an area covering a significant part of Northern Sweden.
Hope It Will Not Terrify is a performative adaptation of the handwritten letter that depicts traveling and to live hidden. It describes with simple words the need for intimacy, a social context and a fear of trying. The film initiates a political gesture, an austere meeting between a newly retired woman of Finnish origin with experience of language through her extensive work with SFI (Swedish For Immigrants) and a younger man, an asylum seeker who due to his LGBTQ-identity has been forced to leave his home country in North Eastern Africa. Both find themselves in Västerbotten as a result of their private relationships. They meet in a translation of the letter between their languages—Swedish, English and Amharic—and the brief events of the letter become embodied through their contemporary experiences.
Hope It Will Not Terrify, film stills. Cinematography: Martin Gärdemalm.June 6th 1973, installation view (detail), Västerbotten Museum, 2016. Photo: Conny Karlsson Lundgren. June 6th 1973, installation view (detail), Västerbotten Museum, 2016. Photo: Conny Karlsson Lundgren. Hope It Will Not Terrify, film stills. Cinematography: Martin Gärdemalm.Hope It Will Not Terrify, excerpts 4.05 mins (full length13.45 mins), 2016. Cinematography: Martin Gärdemalm.June 6th 1973 and Hope It Will Not Terrify, installation view, Västerbotten Museum, 2016. Photo: Conny Karlsson Lundgren.
Performers: Ritva Lundberg and Zega. Director, Editing and Grading: Conny Karlsson Lundgren. Cinematographer: Martin Gärdemalm. Sound Recordist: Linda Iro Näsström. Sound Editing: Jesper Norda. Assistants: Felicia Westerlund and Razvan Anghelache. Special Thanks: Camilla Påhlsson and Märit Simonsson (Konstfrämjandet Västerbotten), Suzanne Steneberg and the Staff (Västerbotten Museum), Jan and Bengt Åke, RFSL Umeå, RFSL Newcomers, Folkrörelsearkivet, Lill Casslind and Johan Lundkvist (Film i Västerbotten).Hope It Will Not Terrify was created as part of The White House, a project initiated by Konstfrämjandet Västerbotten and Västerbotten Museum.Exhibitions: Västerbotten Museum, Umeå SE. Gallery Verbeeck-Van Dyck, Antwerp BE. Screenings: Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg SE.
©MMXIV Conny Karlsson Lundgren