Sam Hultin (b. 1982) is an artist based in Stockholm, Sweden. Their work is based on their interest in queer history, identity and community and explores connections between personal experiences and larger political and social structures. Sam’s work is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Gothenburg Museum of Art and Malmö Art Museum.
Eva-Lisa Bengtson (1932–2018) was a Swedish trans pioneer and a lesbian activist who started Sweden’s first club for trans people—Transvestia—in 1964. She was also one of the founders of Kvinnohuset (The Women’s House) in Stockholm, the trans associations Benjamin and FPE-NE, and was active in a number of other lgbtqi organisations. Despite her great importance to the lgbtqi movement, few knew about her work, partly because of the transphobia within the movement, but also because she couldn’t live openly as a trans person in her daily life. In the podcast, Sam Hultin introduces the listener to Eva-Lisa, Transvestia, and Sam’s project, Eva-Lisa’s Monument. In the project, which consists of guided walking tours, collective readings, and anniversaries, Sam invites today’s trans community to activate the archive that Eva-Lisa created during her life as an activist and that Sam took over after Eva-Lisa’s passing.
Publishing creative works-in-progress is something we should be doing more of. Floating in a space of incompleteness, in-the-making-ness, and reckoning with each other is something we should be doing more of. And if anything, questing for certainty and completion in our industry is compromising our art on a collective level.
READIn defense of works-in-progress
In August 2021 Mourning School (Rosa Paardenkooper, Lucie Gottlieb), a long-term curatorial study program based in Stockholm and Dear, (Martha Jager) an Amsterdam-based artist initiative, gathered on Vifarnaholme, an island in Lake Malaren, near the city centre of Stockholm. During their week-long residency there they worked collaboratively on a series of five letters written or otherwise composed by invited artists, authors and poets. This audio essay is built up with hyperlinks that direct readers & listeners to different parts of the mix that connect to the respective words/phrases. The endnotes to the essay form a tracklist.
READDear, don’t forget to bring a carton of milk on your way home x
But what if I am comfortable in my own space? What if I don’t want to defy the impossible and all I want is to achieve my goals peacefully? Why should I compete fiercely with others to achieve my aims?
READOrdinary Life
To connect-the-dots once more, sharing a collection of songs – or a single song really – is very much similar to sharing emotions, skills, knowledges, time, food, or a room. Like being on a film set, a screening room, or a conversation together. Like sending the spontaneous text message to a stranger telling them how much you enjoyed their film.
READNettles in the Summer
