Bomassan

Bomassan was an artistic project in Hökarängen led by Jens Strandberg, with the aim of "creating platforms and tools for residents to meet and develop ideas based on their collective experience".*

When I was in my second year at Konstfack, Johanna Billing invited us to participate in the project with a kind of study circle, and me and five other art students joined. During the months that followed, we took part in conversations, lectures, wood-carving events and walks in and around Grannskapskontoret where Bomassan was housed. In the spring semester, we had the chance to participate with our own art projects if we wanted to.

By that time, I had just started to make my own paint after finding a lot of iron oxide red in Falun. Bomassan was the perfect framework for developing the research further. Making paint out of local materials is a good way to get to know a certain place, and it proved to be a useful tool for approaching Hökarängen.

So during the spring of 2018, you could say I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to painting, without painting at all. Instead, I dug up gravel, pulled weeds, boiled pinecones, pulverized stone, melted snow. Bunias orientalis grew all over Högdalstoppen, and from it I got a brilliant yellow lac. From the busy road Örbyleden, I collected two bags filled with dark snow, which turned into a brown-grey pigment smelling of gasoline. Bomassan not only gave me a place to experiment, but also a context. Painting took on a social aspect.

*http://bomassan.org/om-bomassan