The Mattress

In front of the historic palace of power, under green treetops, Bitte Alling has placed a mattress in a scarred container. In an uneasy time marked by war, it is human to seek peace and quiet. But appearances are deceiving. The mattress does not invite anyone to rest, but instead offers a false sense of security. The container offers not protection, but imprisonment. The work polarizes the painful place between hope and despair.

The artist remembers:

A wartime child with bunkers, German aircraft engines, blackout curtains

A Swedish tiger

A new classmate just sat there at her desk, back straight, tight plaits, white apron,

surrounded by a wall of silence

No one explained why she came and couldn’t speak a word of Swedish but had a Swedish name

To this day, I do not know Bodil’s Jewish name

 

Afterwards

No more war

No more ghettos

No more concentration camps

Video: Bertil Nyström

Sound: Amit Sen