Back to Back
2022 | Full HD | Stereo | 4 videos of total 64 minutes | 3,5x2x1,4 meter wood installation | Edition 3 + 1 AP




Based on their own backgrounds, Back to Back presents experiences relating to language, education, and the Swedish national state’s conceptions of normativity and the desirable citizen.

In a series of films, Karin Keisu and Josse Thuresson bring together historical experiences of two languages, Swedish Sign Language and Meänkieli, which were once deemed unfit to play a part in the development of modern Sweden. Sign language was banned in education in 1880, and students were encouraged to learn lipreading and given speech therapy instead. In the workhouses of Norrbotten, where underprivileged children were taught from 1903 to 1954, speaking Meänkieli was prohibited. This ban was part of the Swedification process initiated by the Swedish state, which was intended to shape the citizen body of the future. In both these educational systems, crafts were taught to provide the children with skills that would make them upstanding, productive citizens. As an alternative to this approach to creative work, Keisu and Thuresson have decided to show their film works within an unruly wooden installation–a sculptural body that directs the viewer’s attention to the playful, intuitive, and multilingual.

Christina Zetterlund, Curator Luleå Biennial 2022



Exhibition and screening history:
The Collection: Recent Acquisitions, Kin Museum of Contemporary Art (Kiruna), 2024
Kulturskolan (Kiruna), 2024
Kulturhuset Fanfaren (Stockholm), 2024
Jack presenterer: Back to Back, Vega Scene (Oslo), 2023
As fire set in my throat, Österängen Konsthall (Jönköping), 2023
Luleå Biennal 2022: Craft & Art, Luleåbiennalen (Luleå), 2022
Kulturnatt x KunstØrn, Kunsthall Trondheim (Trondheim), 2022
Sometimes Times - Mourning School, Tranebergsbron (Stockholm), 2022
The Language of Friction is Uttered from Within, Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, (Kiruna), 2022
Konstfack Degree Exhibition, Konstfack (Stockholm), 2022
Back to Back, Konstfack (Stockholm), 2022