The word formation bears the double meaning of describing both something that has taken form, and something that’s in the process of being formed. In military terminology the word also describes an arrangement of military forces.

Predicting the future by pouring hot tin in cold water and interpreting the shapes is an old declining Swedish tradition, often taking place during new years eve. The tin used for this work comes from melted Carolean tin soldiers that I casted as a kid with my dad, and which in turn he casted with his. The Caroleans was the Swedish army from 1682-1721 during the reign of Charles XI and Charles XII. Today they have to a large extent come to be appropriated by the Swedish national movement as symbols for the nations past grandure. Many historians however have emphasized a more complex and less glorious reality for the people living during this time period, marked largely by death and poverty, due to kings relentless imperialist war.

In a time when militarization and right-wing nationalism is once again on the rise, this work aims to highlight the role of interpretation in the understanding of our past and present, as well as to disrupt the reproduction of a aggrandizing nationalistic narrative in order to allow for a more fluid and speculative imagination of what the future might be.

Installed in the exhibition Landet ingenstans at Ahlbergshallen, 2023.