The light from the north

Art+ FÖLJLjuset from norrUlrika Stahre reports from the biennial loaded with politics, poetry and rysskräckFoto: håkan elofsson”The blood of the stars”, Raqs media collective. Installation in Mjölkuddsberget in Luleå.ART

Nattfestivalen in Korpilombolo draws a full house. Selections, Bulgarian dance, tea and bun. Författarläsningar and workshops. Since 2005, is celebrated every year darkness, one might say.

Longing for the light forces a realization of the long polar night. Just before midnight invigningskvällen it's time for Ingela Ihrmans performance of queen of the Night, when the artist put a large cactus of the fabric as she slowly let the trap out to a flower. Soon after this, the wilting of the flower and the whole thing is over.

Ihrmans performance is a part of the Luleåbiennalen, in different ways, branching out in several places in Norrbotten. The theme is Tidjord – an expression that tries to blend together the sun's absence, with the all the prerequisites – which smoothly joins with the queen of the Night, which blooms one night of the year. A consolation for us who fear the dark. The night will be fleeting, a time, a trust short period of time.

About the biennial's guest appearance is limited in Korpilombolo, it is the greater of Ájtte, the mountain and sami museum in Jokkmokk. This takes the artists place in the permanent exhibition. Among the educational dioramas and showcases lights, among other things Hanni Kamalys abstract sculpture, Neda Saeedis sculpted may, with cracked surface and, in particular, the Pre-image (Blind as the mother tongue), a film about migration and escape of Hiwa K .

Movement and a global look at the nomadic life, depleted natural resources seems to be a unifying theme, and it is a picture that will become clearer as many of the artists will return and get more space at Luleå konsthall. Neda Saeedis the entire installation, the Garden of Eden moving: A petrified tribe, provides a sophisticated picture of how a nomadkultur in Iran were broken up by the industrietablering, a sugar factory. May, the sugar as the material, the film's monotonous movements – the installation is one of several that elegantly fills both the room and the intellect. It is a dense exhibition that invited in the biennial heartland.

Here is the man small and full of mystery and conflict, the nature is great and strong

Here is also a model borrowed from the police museum, which depicts the communist Norrskensflammans redaktionshus, dismantled in 1940 by a collection of mainly military kommunisthatare, with stadsfiskal Ebbe Hallberg in the tip. The attack is still one of the deadliest political attacks in Sweden, where five died, including two children.

Norrskensflammans redaktionshus, model.

By recalling the attack on Thus want to Luleåbiennalen put the light not only on the högerextrem terror in the Hereafter, but also of the press and freedom of expression, and the pattern is clearly visible in Luleå and Boden (and biennale): the Defense and the fear of the russians steam.

Two abandoned sites that has with defence to do the painting of art, red mountain fort in Boden and Mjölkuddsberget in Luleå. In the latter, originally a communications hub during the earth, Raqs media collective created a dreamy and a little eerie installation in the aisles and the office. Phones ring, iron beds are stacked, a meteorite are seen in a booth.

The blood of stars, a poetic essäfilm functions as the starting point for a holistic study in the connection – the iron, the blood, the universe.

Just essäfilmer there are several of the biennale, a genre that has become strikingly common. Topics – exploitation of Norrbotten's natural resources, the lighthouse as a symbol for navigation and the control is in phase with the biennial theme. But not until I see The blood of stars, I realize how much I miss a design that gives more than knowledge. Maybe I just want to, on the gps-intensive hunting for Luleåbiennalens all places, to be seduced by something that is not addressed to my brain.

One such place is the part Havremagasinet in Boden, where Susanne M Winterlings rumsinstallation in the basement are located in an elegant dialogue with the exhibition of Digital landscape a couple of stairs up. Here glows the of nature, plants, technology, and the dissolved boundaries – mind-boggling audio and enjoyable even when the work's expanse is not really possible to grasp.

”Garden of Eden moving: A petrified tribe”, Neda Saeedi.

One can safely say that the biennale works rhizomatiskt, it stretches out its roots for miles around, all the way up to Kiruna, where Zhou Tao film the Blue and the red shown in the Konstgillets storefront. Here, man is small and full of mystery and conflict, the nature is great and strong. Band is not only created between the Norrbotten locations, but to the struggle and resistance the world over.

In the municipality of Kiruna is also the small village of Lainio, where a group of artists worked in the periods and within the biennial framework set out at Norrbottens museum in Luleå. Here you will meet the museum's archives and Lainios artifacts, photography, film, and intricate history. Even if the small exhibition can be difficult to understand, it contributes to the biennial large width.

A crispy cold of the winter wait for this klimatkrisens years. Which really ties in well with the Luleåbiennalens theme, where the darkness shall be understood as the closest existential or political. It gets very dark. Lucky then that this ambitious return (the biennale has remained fallow since 2013) can brighten up the particularly well-chosen places. Torches are redundant, and in Mjölkuddsberget.