Line Skywalker Karlström

Works for Live Art Danmark
2011 “(leaving) Nest” at Samtalekøkken
2014 “Kroppen der stak af” at Live art for Børn 1
2015 “Finding the Lesbian Leak at the Louvre” at Kulstof 15

(leaving) Nest
This performance by Line Skywalkerm, presented at Samtalekøkkenet in December 2011, was a new durational work, created for the occasion and running for three hours. We participate in a poetic, physical, semi-improvised ritual that moves  between different installations, groups of materials and nests, in the large open space of Carlsberg Hall. The work is based on the size and character of the room, animals, nature, and materials. (Leaving) Nest is performed as a cleansing ritual. It speaks about transformation, knowing and acknowledging one’s origins, and to know what it is you are leaving.

Kroppen der stak af
At Live art for Børn 1 in Nikolaj Kunsthal Line showed this performance with the full title “Kroppen der stak af (hjemmefra (og fulgte begærets linje med sit blik)”, roughly translating into “The body that ran away (from home (and followed the line of desire with his gaze)”. She puts her body, clad in a skin colored full body suit, through a series of actions among an array of technical equipment. The largest one seems to be a printer/Scanner combination, like the one everybodye has in their home office. She uses it to scan different parts of her own body.  The scanned images promptly appear on a small video projection in the background in eerie black and white, while Line performs a series of manipulations on her own body. This performance is a good example of our idea that no performance style or subject matter is too complex to present for kids, as long as appropriate framing is provided.

The video of the performance was randomly age restricted by YouTube, you can se it here.

Finding the Lesbian Leak at the Louvre
And at Kulstof 15, Line performed “Finding the Lesbian Leak at the Louvre”. For the performance she created a performative, semi-improvised installation. The work is inspired by her ongoing interest in what it means ‘to think with the body’. She places her own body in front of a large video projection which displays a collection of photographic images of details of 16^th and 17^th century paintings representing female persons. We are taken on a fascinating trip into a personal subjective archive of physical gestures Line chose to name and read as subversive, queer or lesbian.

Photo: Peter Lind

About the Artist
Line Skywalker Karlström (b. 1971) is a Swedish interdisciplinary artist who uses performance, objects, installation, video and social action as tools to investigate structures in society pertaining to communality, power, institution, space and body.

Read more about the artist on her blog.