I usually take a mental walk along Gorky Street, a street I know very well, beginning at Mayakovsky Square and slowly make my way down. Every word I have to memorize, I transform into a striking image and I record it in my mind by placing it at a specific place along my walk.

In ”Therapy in Junkspace” the visitor is asked to take a walk. The installation presents itself as an exercise, but could also be seen as a dysfunctional memory theatre where an absurd form of quantification and storage is conducted. Initially we follow the voice of a mnemonist, retelling how she stores that which she whishes to remember in her environs by transforming words into images. But her story is eventually processed and broken down into unrelated bits of information.

The installation was shown as part of the solo exhibition "In the Greenery", Inter Arts Center, 8-29 April, 2016, and is part of Janna Holmstedt’s research project Are You Ready for a Wet Live-In? Explorations into Listening at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, and Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University, in the framework of Konstnärliga forskarskolan, Sweden.

Language: English
Voices: Janna Holmstedt, Jo Rideout, Alex Voiceover
Sound mix and sound technician: Marcus Pal
Technicians: Anders Smolka, Marcus Råberg
Programming: Marcus Pal, Jörgen Dahlqvist
The exhibition was produced in collaboration with Teatr Weimar and Wlabs, and is supported by the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University; Konstnärliga forskarskolan; Teatr Weimar and Inter Arts Center.
Photo: Mikael Lindahl and Janna Holmstedt