HUMAN. Performance / Sculpture 2025 (widescreen)

Описание: PERFORMANCE "HUMAN"
Sunday, 14 September 2025
Sculpture met Music in a four-hour performance that started at the Rådhus-square in Vadstena, moved through the town in interaction with the audience and ended in front of the abbey church. The performance was an additional part of the Vadstena open art tour's 20th anniversary.

SUMMARY:
Accompanied by violin improvisations by the violinist and riksspelman (=nationally recognised folk musician) Pelle Gustafsson from Sundborn/Dalarna in Sweden, I (Linn Carlehed) sculpted a man in clay with a sort of skeleton made of mixed materials that made it possible to move his body parts almost like a human. After two hours of shaping his body, I began to transfer him as one would do with a person who cannot move himself. I started to drag him towards the promenade leading to the abbey church. Much faster than I had planned to involve them, almost immediately the audience asked to help carrying him. Eight committed volunteers and more who followed as substitute carriers took the heavy body all the way through the city to the church. There we gathered, I put him in a semi-prone position and covered him to protect him from being too exposed. Pelle stopped playing and we all remained gathered in silence by the clay man's side until the church bells struck five.
The performance was over and all artists and craftspeople in the surrounding were told to come and take as much clay as they wanted during the next day. Although it was difficult to start taking clay from his body, "I felt like a scavenger stealing the flesh from his bones", as someone expressed it, it helped us to get rid of 65 kilos of heavy clay. But the most important thing about this part was that his "mortal remains" were immediately transformed into new creations, as a symbol of the circle of life.

THANK YOU...
Thanks to our two dedicated and valuable assistants Maria Segersäll and Maria Sundelius for all the practical help and support.
Thanks to all of you, you know who you are, who gave us spontanious donations that helped us cover travel and material costs.
Thank you for sharing photos and videos: Camilla Linusson, Susanne Carlehed-Wyss, Elisabeth Casell-Berghagen, Maria Sundelius, Johanna Linder, Jim Löfgren, Pelle Gustafsson, Beatrice Paping, Gerhard Paping, Peter Karlsson, Gun Möller, Marianne Henrikson, Ingrid Ginman Nordstedt, Lena Linde, Nada Tendzeric, Iréne Nord, and those of you who I possibly forgot to mention.
And a special THANK YOU! to all of you who expressed such a strong will to help and also urged others to help carrying. And you really did not give up, even though you were struggling with the weight of the human being!
You are the living example of what social responsibility, human cooperation, empathy and humanity look like. The true result of this art work were each and every one of you. Some of you stayed during the entire performance – 4 hours! – what a commitment as spectators and participants! And many more of you contributed with your presence and your thoughts on the work. So many interpretations and personal reflections than we consciously knew to express.

SOME REACTIONS:
"Tenderness."
"A deeply touching work, where HUMAN was sculpted with tenderness, care and precision. An almost religious feeling when every toe, every rib, every ear was massaged with detail... A fleeting, ephemeral life that becomes many new lives... From clay you came, to clay you shall return."
Perhaps the most honest and important of all reactions? Thank you for sharing: "I am deeply ashamed that I walked away when I saw how heavily you were carrying, instead of offering my help. I failed in my civic responsibility, I lacked the courage to move from thought to action. But I couldn't stop thinking about it so I came back, and others had helped but this really left me with a terrible feeling."
And this really feels like we succeeded in our art, having managed to cause both confusion and comedy:
A passer-by: "What's going on here?" A spectator: "It's becoming some kind of art work." Another spectator: "It IS an art work!" Passer-by to partner: "It's an art work! But that's nothing we understand anything of!"
"Human and painful! I also think that it was such a nice manifestation when you gave away all the clay, the work continues to live on in the creation of others and is given new life."
"Such important thoughts and perspectives brought into art and further into our beloved town. I know that society becomes both more beautiful and stronger thanks to you and what you shared. People become more thoughtful and inclined to contribute to a good society themselves."
"Your gentle art is a democratic steamroller – as our society needs it the most!"
"I will carry HUMAN with me and cherish his memory as a reminder of what life is really about."

#pellefiddler #pellegustafsson #pellegustafssonviolin #linnofvad #linnmariecarlehed #vadstenakonstrunda #vadstenakonstrunda2025
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