Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
The Orient by Swedish artist Jan Håfström takes as its point of departure a conversation with someone who has had a so-called psychotic experience. The work was influences by R. D. Laing´s essay, A Ten Day Journey, and other things. In the course of an “inner journey”, reminiscences and sequences from the past and images of an old Indian woman and grandmother pass in succession. Scenes rotted in the subconscious and in creative forces flashing before our inner eye.
Jan Håfström studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and is one of his generation’s most acclaimed painters and sculptors. Additionally, Håfström has also worked with film as an artform since the 1960’s where he has both directed and participated in several films.
Together with Claes Söderquist he made the short film Le Génie Civil in 1967, which consists of stills from technical journals from the 19th century. This consideration of Western technology optimism and the emergence of modernity gained a commendation in the Orient that Håfström did on his own that same year. Together, the two films explore and thematize memory and history writing, where the Eurocentric worldview is exposed to dissection.
Jan Håfström has said that he learned to dream in the cinemas, and the film’s suggestion power can also be seen as a recurring motif in his painting and graphics, where the popular culture templates are reused to make a journey into the interior of the western civilization. One of Håfström’s favorite references is Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, and like his protagonist Marlowe, he has made a journey into the painful points of memory.
