Fanny Åberg

“I work primarily with moving images and installation in my depiction of questions relating to illness, the role of women and interpersonal relationships. By positioning my own experiences within a historical or societal context, I investigate how meaning, patterns and shifts appear within these subjects.”

In Fanny Åberg’s art, society, body and soul all come together. Åberg reflects on the boundaries between her own body, the psyche and the social norms we live with. How these relationships have been negotiated over time, and how they should be understood in relation to inner experiences that are just as real as houses, cars, waste management and news feeds. What is healthy and what is sick? What is private and what is public? Where do my soul and your consciousness meet?

Åberg has her own experiences of mental ill-health, but her work is not solely autobiographical. She uses her experiences to shed light on contemporary social structures and medical establishments, and in several of her works she has explored – with an open mind and great curiosity – how mentally ill women have been judged, treated and portrayed throughout history.

She addresses these issues with warmth and humour, and also embraces the relatives in her search. What role is assigned to the mother of a daughter whom she wants to help but is sometimes unable to reach? What happens to feelings of guilt and shame, inability and the unending struggle for all those who are caught up in a dance where no one can manage entirely on their own? Perhaps this is where we see the greatest of acts of love: withstanding together.