Works

FILM / INSTALLATION

Sunset/Sunrise 
(The Fairy Garden)


2025
Two-channel video installation, Mini DV and 4K with two-channel stereo sound, 9.20 mins.
—Lent et grave.

One evening in 2001, Conny Karlsson Lundgren was capturing the sunset on a beach in Los Angeles. Long known as a cruising spot, the beach is an informal haven where LGBTI+ people have gathered and carved out a safe space for themselves since the 1940s. With a coded search for casual erotic encounters in public places, cruising is a significant part of queer culture, but has lately found other forms in the wake of digital apps and other developments.

The two-channel video installation borrows a fragment from Le jardin féerique, a short piece by Maurice Ravel from the early 20th century. The original score was composed for two pairs of hands and a piano, indicating an intimacy with two bodies side by side.In the new composition, made in collaboration with composer and artist Jesper Norda, the two voices of the piece are used as a call and response, like the coded ‘call and response’ of cruising culture. The voices of the composition are performed on the cello by Christoffer Berg, who embraces, listens and searches, where the instrument becomes an entity. 

The title of the piece, which means ‘The Fairy Garden’ in English, becomes a play on the English word fairy, which has been used in a derogatory way to describe homosexual men, like the Swedish word fjolla or bög. The pixelated sunset seems to be stuck in a constant twilight, in a gap in time. The absence of bodies here may signal an ‘after’, such as the aftermath of an erotic encounter or as if the casual visitor has arrived too late.

Cinematography: Camilla Topuntoli (4K), Conny Karlsson Lundgren (MinDV).  Music: Jesper Norda (after Ravel’s Le jardin féerique) Cello/Recordist: Christopher Berg. Special Thanks: Fredrik Egerstrand/Studion Ringön Commissioned by Norrtälje Konsthall for the exhibition Sunset/Sunrise. Exhibitions: Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje SE.

 ©MMXV Conny Karlsson Lundgren