I enrum / On Your Own

CARLA ÅHLANDER

			I ENRUM (On Your Own), 2000 Sound installation, Malmö Konsthall The idea was to let the toilet visitors listen to conversations/monologues with a number of women living in the Malmö area, in a pair of headphones installed in each of the Konsthalls's toilet rooms. A pair of head phones is hanging above the toilet seat. In the headphones you hear a woman talking. What you hear is put together from hour-long conversations which then have been edited into a series of monologues. Inside each toilet you meet a new woman. The toilets were chosen for the simple reason that there, you are alone. The loneliness gives the silence and creates an intimacy and concentration which makes it possible for the listener to take in what is being said, without distractions from the outside. In this case, the toilets become a place where you can balance between the public and the private. The women you hear talking in the headphones are of different ages and have different backgrounds - they have different educations or none, are hetero- or homosexual, are of Swedish or other origin, etc. They have all been asked what is the most important for them personally, what they themselves would like to have said - therefore the subjects they choose to talk about stretch over everything from equality, school, family, sex and the Öresund bridge, to how it was in the old days and expectations for the future - all depending on who they are, where they are in life, whith what experiences, etc. The result is a series of recordings telling not only personal stories of these individuals, but of a country, a town and of the present time as well.
	Audiofile in Swedish, Quicktime: 1,4 MB/07:30 min		English translation (text)