The Grandfather’s Story
Grandfather’s Story is a video installation on the theme of origin, influence, explores ideas of migration, oral tradition and family. It is narrative in nature trying to create family and generational parallels. The story told is from my maternal grandfather Harry Lind, told by my brothers and I, by my grandmother when we were children after the grandfather had already passed away. Harry Lind died in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1904. He left Sweden during the Great Depression for South America. Upon arrival in South America in Buenos Aires, Argentina, finally towards Chile, Bolivia and, finally, Peru, where he fell in love with the Amazon and its people. The story unfolds progressively and chronologically through the narrative of my grandmother, who chose the moment of her marriage as the end point. Upon entering the facility there is a space with a spacious and comfortable bench in front of a large flat-screen TV. In the video shown, you can hear a voice that tells a story. Every few sentences the narrator changes as well as the language. There are no images, only accompanying text that translates the video into Spanish, Swedish, Danish and English, the current languages of their descendants: the narrators are made up of grandchildren and my grandmother. The translation is as faithful as possible to the oral language of the first narrator, my grandmother. Installation presented at the Valand spring exhibition, Sweden 2009. Voices: Elsa, Alex, David, Louise Maria, Lasse, Ida, Johan, Susanna, Viktoria, Carlos, Diana. Translated by: Gustavo Riesco Lind, Johanna Holmgren, Johan Lind, Emily Mennerdahl, Mårten Bergkvist, Louise Maria Lind Andersen, Lasse Lind, Christian Hansen. Special thanks to: Elsa del Aguila Jarl, Anastasia Melekou, Georgos Chloros, Melissa Ortega, Juan Lind del Aguila, Carlos Gustavo Lind del Aguila, Arne Lind, Katrin Casper, Oscar Lara, Steven Ladouceur.
https://vimeo.com/15286117
