Desconocida Unknown Ukjent at Luleaa Summer Biennial 2007, Luleaa, Sweden, "Passion of mankind"

I arrived June 11th in Luleaa, to be part of Luleaa Summer Biennial 2007, "Passion of mankind". It has been a great experience. Everything was so well planned and worked out with so much engagement from the organizers. To meet artists from all over the world, everyone with a different voice concerning passion of mankind, have given me so much to think about and reflect on. I also found the people living in Luleaa to be very engaged. The art hall was every day visitted by people coming by, interested in what we were installing. It made the period of installment a very active and different experience from many other places.

The first day the curators had arranged a meeting for me with a local reporter to discuss Desconocida and the upcoming embroidery event the following day. The reporter wrote such a warm and thoughtful text in the newspaper, which I think made so many people come for the workshop. The workshop went well. We sat in the galleryspace where I later would install the labels and watched Lourdes Portillo's film: Missing young women" while we embroidered the names of the last year's victims of this tragedy. It was very quiet in the room, you could hear the siccors being laid down after cutting the thread, sometimes someone whispered, but mostly we all sat and sewed and listened to the stories being told through Lourdes Portillos camera. Afterwards we had a quiet talk about the situation. Some took with them home labels they later would return to me.

In installing the labels I had many helpers. Both among the people that worked at the art hall, but also fellow artists, such as Frank Bolter, who took all the images from the embroidery workshop.

Two awards were given on the opening of the Biennial. This year the jury selected two works to share one of the awards; Desconocida Unknown Ukjent and Frank Bolter's work: "Little boys of Luleaa"!

Thank you all for continuing to be part of this project!

Best Lise