Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
During a period of two years we examined the Umeå river delta area in northern Sweden. This area is interesting because the landscape changes very quickly. During the ice age the land was pressed down and it is now rising back up with a speed of 1 cm/year which doesn’t maybe sound much but with a flat shoreline quickly makes a difference. The river also brings a lot of sand and sediment and this material accumulates in the delta so that new islands are born. The new-born islands are first just sandbanks but soon enough grasses and shrubs start growing there and eventually the island is part of the delta’s deciduous forest.
In Vadaren we follow a person walking in the river between the islands. Sometimes the camera dives down in the water and follows the person in this underwater landscape. What today is covered by flowing water will in a few years time have risen and become land.
In recent years, I have mainly worked with installations in which I mixed sculpture and video. I often collaborate with other artists, musicians or writers, such as in the exhibition under marken at gallery Syster in Luleå in 2021, where the writer Andrea Lundgren, the musician Linus Johansson and I started from a badger den and together created an underground world.
In 2018 I directed and animated the film Radio Black Peter together with Simon Öhman Jönsson and Bautafilm in co-production with SVT. It is a documentary story that tells how the first radio pirates, two forest workers from Lomsjö, challenged the radio monopoly while the security police chased them through the forests of Norrland.
Helena Wikström, born 1964 in Tingsryd, Småland. Lives in Holmsund, Västerbotten. Exhibited nationally and internationally among others at: Arbetets Museum Norrköping, Bildmuseet Umeå, Köttispektionen Uppsala, gallery Syster Luleå, LCCA Riga, Seuol Photo, Galerij Nova Zagreb. Purchased by Moderna Museet, the Norwegian Arts Council and several municipalities and county councils. Helena Wikström has been part of Galleri Verkligheten in Umeå since 2002 and works part-time as a curator for Vita kuben, Norrlandsoperan.
Gerd Aurell
Born in 1965. Lives and works in Holmsund, Sweden.
In her artistic practice, Gerd Aurell works mainly with drawing, performance and film. The sense of place is important and it is always a point of departure. Gerd Aurell is interested in our view on landscape and nature, how society tries to reshape and control nature.
In their collaborative projects, Gerd Aurell and Helena Wikström have been working with art that focuses on urban planning and landscape use, for example Another City is Possible for the 2009 MADE-festival in Umeå. During the course of several years they have worked artistically with the Umeå River Delta, which resulted in exhibitions at Bildmuseet, Umeå, The National Gallery in Prague and the Survival Kit Arts Festival in Riga (2011). The Delta-project also resulted in two films, Kadens and Vadaren, both premiered at Galleri Rostrum in Malmö (2015).
