Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I’m a Swedish poet, translator, and poetry film maker. I’ve worked with sound and images, in collaboration and across languages. As a writer I’ve throughout my years tried to answer the questions, what is a political poem? a love poem? what is the queer experience? how do you mourn in words? how can grief be shared? I search silence and to break silences. Once I said I’m writing to make silence sound better; to process the disturbance words and noise inflict upon silence. Later I both became obsessed with voice and voices, and with noise, to write the noise, in the speed of noise, listening to the sounds of the world, to record and merge with them. Now I’ve come full circle – back to silence and to what can be heard in the stillness – the whispers, the ghosts, nature’s multifaceted sounds, and an investigation of what language will grow from the unheard.