Author: Malin Pettersson Öberg

Platser Samlingar Namn (Places Collections Names) was published on the occasion of the exhibition "Platser Samlingar Namn" at Dalarnas museum in 2013, with the support of Längmanska kulturfonden and Dalarnas museum. The book is designed by Kajsa Pontén (assisting: Amy Ontiveros) as a publication on the border between a catalogue and an artist book, containing documentation as well as research related material. Among the texts we find "Att förlänga blicken" ("To extend the gaze") by Camilla Larsson, writer and curator at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm, "Det öppna rummet" ("The Open Room") by Karl Steinick, culture journalist and contributor to Svenska Dagbladet, and "Tre samtal" ("Three Conversations") by independent curator and Phd student Elina Suoyrjö.

A series of seven art works – installations, printed matter and films shown in the exhibition – are presented in the book. The art works, and accompanying essays, raise questions about how we define and relate to places; how identity is constructed, and how travels or displacements can open up for new ways of understanding our surrounding world. It allows us to reflect on the museum and its history of collecting, and on how vision has always been conditioned by knowledge situated in a specific time. With her background in Falun, Malin Pettersson Öberg has explored the region of Dalarna and the museum’s collections as a point of departure for some of the works, while others describe remote places and cultures. In this way an anthropological theme is woven, reflecting on and comparing several different places, identities and cultures.