At one point I started questioning why I had the power to tell other people’s stories. I felt that my perspective - as a privileged, white, male from northern Europe - had already been told.
Instead, I started to explore borders by lending cameras and voices. I ventured into years of project management, facilitation, method development, and research.
Bordr etc.
It began with eight cross border traders in Southern Africa in 2010. They borrowed cameras for two months and produced the most astounding work - telling their own stories for their own purposes to counter stigma and discrimination.
Resulting exhibitions toured - along with some of the traders - to Namibia, South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana and 18 cities in Sweden
A revisit four years later showed that the project had contributed to improved perceptions towards the trader community
After this, I lent cameras to immigrants in New York, stateless in Jordan, and pupils in Sweden. Programmer Christo de Klerk, and I co-developed an app where people could log in between places, emotions, and spaces in time.
A new story concept became it’s own organisation - named Bordr
We organized interactive exhibitions in Sweden and New York
EU-funding meant that we could explore participatory storytelling through arts, craft, music and interactive exhibitions. We started learning across initiatives.
Another organisation formed with a digital platform for process sharing called Global Grand Central
Project research led to a side career as an evaluator and facilitator
Along with all the conceptual exploring, I moved back to my rural childhood home in Sweden to better understand where I come from. I became deeply involved with arts cooperative Not Quite, as we tried to co-define the future for a whole village.
We called it “The New Mill Town”
Below are images and concepts from the processes
