Fear and Adornment

Givenchy

2008-10-17T07:41:00.000+02:00

Genvägen mellan Telefonplan och Åsen

2008-05-23T12:06:00.000+02:00

Om man går ifrån Telefonplan längs tunnelbanan mot Hägerstensåsen, kan man antingen följa parkvägen upp för backen, eller gena gjenom skogen. Det är en liten stig som knappt syns om man inte vet om den. På ena sidan är det skog och på andra sidan tunnelbanespåret. Stigen är nog ungefär 40 meter lång innan man kommer ut på en annan parkväg.

När jag går till skolan på morgonen tar jag genvägen men när jag går hem på kvällen går jag alltid runt.

Jag är inte riktigt säker på vad jag tror kan hända där på kvällen, kanske att jag väcker en pundare som sover och han hugger mej med en rostig skruvmejsel.

Magiska amuletter

2008-05-23T12:05:00.003+02:00

Jag har skapat nio stycken magiska amuletter. Jag har hängt upp dom längst genvägen jag är rädd för att gå på natten.

Amuletterna är gjorda av magiskt trä och magiska kristaller och beskyddar den som bär den från alla nattens faror.

Falling, falling, escalator subway Östermalmstorg.

2008-05-23T12:03:00.000+02:00

Looking down, can see the escalator, steep and sharp. Feeling panic, don´t want to get on, don´t trust myself . Is this one of theese days when I will make it or when it finally goes to hell. Too late, people are already behind me, must get on.

My legs are shaking, try to balance on the narrow step. I could either fall down on my face onto the sharp steel or get too close to the yellow stripe and get stuck and my heels will get squezeed and my clothes will drag me down.

I am in the middle now, my legs are heavy and my stomach is revolving. Am I gonna fall and die this time? Try to not look down, try insteed to look at the people I am meeting, Blank faces. do they see that I am a nutcase, all these people that seem to handle this so easy?

Should I dare to put my hand on the rolling rubber railing? No, stories from my childhood comes back. The one about a boy or a girl that got caught and was strangled.

Almost there, the terryfying step to get off, is this when I will finally get smashed .

For my sister

Falling Fear for Sister

2008-05-23T12:02:00.005+02:00

Hon säger att hon får ta omvägar.
Hon undrar vad de tänker de som möter henne, vid hissen utan barnvagn, utan rullator.

Varför ska hon åka hiss, vad är det för fel.

Hur ska man förklara det som inte syns.

Mina smycken vill förklara och till sist attackera.

Till Syrran.

Mellan Rålis och Konradsberg

2008-05-23T11:29:00.000+02:00

The path between the safe and the unsafe environment.

When I move from east to west towards my home I pass this tunnel. Before comes Rålambhovsparken, which I don’t like any time of the day, and after come Konradsbergsparken, where I feel safe and at home even though it is dark.

This is the zone between fear and safety.

The irrational fear

2008-05-23T11:28:00.006+02:00

I admire woman that can walk outside during night time without feeling fear. I do feel fear even though I know that most often it is irrational. I know that most of the crimes of rape or other sexual violence is committed by someone you know, someone in your family, your ex boyfriend or a friend of a friend. I do not know where this fear comes from, but I know that I did not create it alone. The society constantly tells be both to be afraid and also how I should behave and look to not get raped or sexually abused. Woman that reclaims the night and the public space do have real courage, I would like to be one of them.

During 2007, 4749 cases of rape was reported in Sweden, 5,67% was committed outdoors

The underpass between Mälarhöjden and Bredäng.

2008-05-23T11:27:00.000+02:00

This is a place that divides the Mälarhöjden area, with its cosy streets of expensive, stylish one-family houses and Bredängs forest of sad, rundown concrete apartment-buildings. It is a place of segregation that attracts anger, fear and resentment. I am always uncomfortable while i pass this place, it is an unfair place.

It is also a hidden place, where i fear an unwarranted attack of some sort, who would hear me if i screamed here? In which direction would I run if I felt threatened, Mälarhöjden or Bredäng, where would help come from?

No Wall!

2008-05-23T11:26:00.000+02:00

There will be No Wall between Mälarhöjden and Bredäng!

Beauty and serenety appeared instead.

Sergels Torg

2008-05-23T11:21:00.000+02:00

I asked my friend at which site in Stockholm she felt most unsafe, and immediatly the answer was Sergels Torg.

I asked her why and her reply was that the envoriment was so energydraining.

The colourless and grey enviroment, the people that you always see at the square; drug addicts, homeless people and all the criminality.

Everything in that place is misery and it gives me anxiety to me, she said.

Torg of fear

2008-05-23T11:20:00.004+02:00

Like a flower she has grown up from the ground, but its not green gras that surrounds her, its concrete.

Platform

2008-05-23T11:16:00.000+02:00

I don´t like the mass of people I have to face there every day. I am scared that sombody might push me or somebody else in front of the approaching train. And sometimes I am scared that I might become the pusher just to see what´s going to happen. When I am standing on that platform I can already see with my inner eye all the possible catastrophies so I get the feeling that they really are going to happen.

change your destiny

2008-05-23T11:15:00.003+02:00

stop time
get back in controll
you are the master of your life

Tysta Marigången

2008-05-23T11:11:00.000+02:00

This is a tunnel behind Hotel Sheraton, close to the Central station.
From the tunnel you can enter the car park under the hotel.
You can hear the noice from cars and trains passing quite close by but you feel that they are far away. Few people are visible, if any at all.

It feels like the time stopped.
At some point somebody had some sort of ambition with the place, but it didn't work out and since then no one seems to care. This is why the uneasy feeling kicks in, this is where the fear lies.

No one caring if anything happens. No one caring if nothing happens.
A dystopic sadness.

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=167201

Tysta Marigången inhabitated

2008-05-23T11:10:00.001+02:00

Is there someone living here?

Somebody that small?

Am I the threat?

Is there any reason for me to be afraid?

Panic in the tubes of Stockholm

2008-05-23T10:43:00.000+02:00

Rush-hour and the tube is packed with people, people sitting, people standning, people brething down your neck. A bag in your face, an elbow in your back, sharing the same suffocating air with half of the city population.

My body start to tingle, my legs feel heavy and i want to fight myself free. I want to breathe!

At the next stop i get of and hope that the coming tube is less crowded.

Panic in the tubes of Stockholm-part II

2008-05-23T10:42:00.004+02:00

standing to close, body contact, violation of privat space. feeling unsafe and vulnerable, unprotected in my on skin. liquidized with the mass as one breathing creature.

Cold black water

2008-05-23T10:30:00.000+02:00

Deep dark water and heights.

This is what my friend is really afraid of but also in away fascinated by.

Cold black water

2008-05-23T10:29:00.002+02:00

The feeling of drowning- being surrounded by the cold dark water.

Skinnarviksparken

2008-05-23T10:23:00.000+02:00

Close to where I live there is a small park called Skinnarviksparken. It is not a large park as far as size wise but I think its both the location of the park, and the people that this park attracts that makes me uneasy. Close to this park there is a sports stadium and a beer hall. The sports fans who visit these two places often meet and rally in the park, either beore they go to a game or afterwards. I am not sure why but there is very often skinheads and quite violent gangs who chose to hang around in this park. Most likely because they have been kicked out of the beer halls, or are simply just looking for trouble.

I work in the hospitality industry and therefore finish odd hours. I am not sure why but I often find myslef chosing to go through this park on my way home. It is not at all much closer or anything but I guess the anger of these idiots hanging around in my park, as I like ot call it and scaring people away makes me want to rebel. I dont want them to feel that they control this park or own it or that it is acceptable to be there looking for trouble. So I often find myself going home there and have actually twice been verbally harrassed by these losers. So far no damage, but the adrenilin rush in combiantion with the fear I feel going through this park is a very stong sensation, which I must add, I actually enjoy it. Or at least the rush of adrenalin afterwards.

Skinnarviksparken

2008-05-23T10:22:00.006+02:00

After making several interviews with passersby in Skinnarviksparken, I came to the conclusion that the darkness in combination to the distance to the lit up street at the end of the park, was what evoked the greatest fear. Therefore I decided to make a bright light installment in the centre of the park.

It works like this. If you are walking through the park, and you hear that there is group of drunk and rowdy people in the dark areas (I have illustrated the skinheads as pearls with swastikas on them) then you know that there is a light right in the centre of the park that you can run to. When you get there, you place your hands on the head and say the word saviour. The light is activated by this word and is turned on into a bright light spherical cloud that lights up the whole park. People that are doing something they know is wrong, usually like to sit in the dark, and the worst thing they know is having light shown upon them. This is the "saviour" light. The light is on for 15 seconds which is enough time to get the end of the park. Also when youa re sitting in the dark and a bright light comes on, it usually takes almost 10 seconds or more before your eyes get used to the light source. This also gives the escapee comfort as you then know that the people in the dark cannot see where you are headed for several seconds at least.

This light is in the shape of a shaved head, as in the diagram and is about 1,5 meters tall. The base of the light source is a heavy iron cylinder, so that it cannot be moved or kicked down. The light itself, when it is not turned on, is in a semi-transparant material possibly pyrexglass. Also so that it cannot be broken. The main light source itself comes through the top of the head the rounded circular area, and therefore creates the spherical light up feeling. Where the eyes are is where the voice activators are located, and they are strong enough to register even a whisper of the word "saviour".

Shortcuts

2008-05-23T09:57:00.000+02:00

free from streetviolence,
free from drunken people with poor judgement, free from any kind of real fear.
but so dark
so abandoned

what might have been

2008-05-23T09:56:00.008+02:00

the site was lacking light and life

what was this site like when it was not so abandoned?

I tried to fill a void by adding movement, light and games
the things that the site missed

An exit at Hornstull

2008-05-22T23:06:00.000+02:00

Ways out: to hide. To run. To face it.

You are one. They are 5. In the haziness of coming back from a party, the streets back to the subway give you an ambush.

The attack culminates in a knife being pulled out...

What are the odds?

And what are your options?

Can you hide? Can you run? Can you face 5 and defend yourself?

What would you choose as your protection?

WAY OUT

2008-05-22T23:05:00.002+02:00

where there's only city.

the ways that lead to safer grounds.

but what are you running from?

and where would you rather be?

there's a handle still missing.

there's a brightness to be added...

Känslan av det dolda

2008-05-22T21:31:00.000+02:00

Känslan känslan känslan känslan
Känslan av vad som döljer sig i det mörka.
Känslan av bland annat mörka sjöar och tunnlar. Vad döljer sig i slutet?
Monster? Pundare? Eller dig själv?

Jag är rädd för att utsätta mig av det dolda, det man inte ser, men samtidigt får jag en kick och måste göra det, precis som barn.

känslan känslan av

2008-05-22T21:30:00.003+02:00

Jag står där vid kanten av JAAA vad skönt, jag gjorde
det mörka vattnet det, klumpen är borta.
Massor av känslor Det var inte så farligt.
kommer i mina tankar.
Det är så mörkt.
Vad döljer sig under ytan?
Vågar jag?
Nej! Jo!

Västerbron

2008-05-19T23:41:00.001+02:00

I walk close to the edge. The scary fascination of what it would feel like if i'd jump. So far down to the dark waters. I get frightened. I take a step back. I don't really want to jump, but the idea stays in the back of my head.

Kronobergsparken

2008-05-19T22:07:00.000+02:00

One of my favourite sites in Stockholm. But at night it makes med insecure.

Afraid of every move, every sound.

Is somebody following me? Do I look vunerable? Could I be a victim?

I put my keyring on my finger. The keys are in my hand. Could be a weapon.

I have to call somebody everytime I walk through the park when its dark. Even if I see my kitchen window as soon as I walk into the park.

So close to home.

The first years when I lived in my apartment there was a homeless man sleeping at a bench. He made me feel safe. I left food there a several times to show my appreciation for his excistence.

But I havent seen him for a long time and suddenly the park feel so empty.

By Michaela

The subway station at Liljeholmen, on the train, just before the doors open.

2008-05-19T12:08:00.000+02:00

I am a notorious subway ticket jumper, and Liljeholmen is the most common place for controllers to get on the train.

Even though I’m used to be in this situation, I’m always nervous and my heart beats a bit to fast.

I’ve got many tricks to avoid paying the fine, but still I can’t control my fear.