Kära mor och far

Exhibited at:

Runaway Train, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (SE), 2010 | Fatform, Kraaiennest, Amsterdam Zuid-Oost (NL), 2012 | No More Westerns IMPAKT Festival, Utrecht (NL), 2012 | Western Trilogy, Gylleboverket, Gärsnäs (SE), 2012

Stills from Kära mor och far (Dear Mother and Father), HD-video, 20:10 min

This is the second instalment of my Western Trilogy, the other two films are Big Game and You’ll Never Walk Alone. Kära mor och far takes place where they shot the famous German-produced series of Winnetou saurkraut westerns in the 1960’s. I play a character that is mistaken for the apache hero Winnetou and he then starts identifying as such. The original films were based on books by Hitler’s big literary hero Karl May and they were subsequently filmed in former Yugoslavia starring French actor Pierre Brice. This hot-potch of national identities inspired me to pursue this project. It is also intended as a self-portrait of myself as a lonely, ex-patriated artist, continuously searching for attention from a hard-to-locate audience. In the film I come across a butterfly collector (played by fellow artist Markus Öhrn) who I kidnap and name John Wayne. Kära mor och far is shown together with a series of eight felt flags.