CLARA T LPEZ MENNDEZ....................

THE PEOPLEMOVER
A Demonstration Poem (1968) by Mary Ellen Solt....20-29
FIA-STINA SANDLUND......... The Moment..............15-19
HANNA GUSTAVSSON........cover: THE VISIONARY...front+back
JESS ARNDT.......................OCULARITY..........34-35
JOHANNA GUSTAVSSON.......One visionary said to the other:
Our time baby, lets go!............................44-47
LENA SRAPHIN..............Prisoner on leave........30-33
MALENE DAM...........Seeing together.................4-13
PIA SANDSTRM..................... I dream about a bright
light on the horizon................................48-53
ULRIKA GOMM...Keynotes. Building nation and bodies..36-43

THE VISIONARY, September 2013

Seeing together
Malene Dam
A few years ago I lost myself to an archive, the Danish Womens Photo
Archive, hidden away in the storage room of a small public feminist library
KVINFO in Copenhagen.
The archive was organized around a need, a desire, to find images of women
and of womens lives. Usually official archives are indexed by a famous
person, event or building. But here a much more basic need was felt, a need
to be able to find images of women, -their lives from their homes, work,
holidays and with family and friends. The collection spans from the mid
1800s-1990s. This general quality makes these images difficult to search
and find in the usual indexing by traditional archives.
The archive is a collection of copies of original photographs. The three
women that initiated the archive put up ads in local newspapers asking
women to share their private photos. Some collections of particular
interest had been contacted as well. All of these images were copied and
then given back to the owners. A complete DIY way of building an archive
and collection.
What I also found was an archive that did not shy away from their desiring
gaze. On the archival cards were small cutouts from contact sheets. Most of
the cards only contained one image, -the copy of the original photograph.
But some had several, -as many as nine. The images were small, only an inch
by an inch. I was forced to pick up the archival cards to look at them more
closely. They did not fit the system set up by the archive. These were
treated differently, although the system was somehow the same. On these
enlargements had been made, enlargements of particular parts of the
original image.
The historian would now have contacted the archivist to understand this
choice, but not me. It didnt interest me. I was protective of the
excitement I felt looking at these small images. I checked to see if there
were more images that resembled these, -more where the archive had enlarged
parts of the original. The archive consists of approx 5000 photographs,
accessible only through these little archival cards. The part of the
archive I was looking at was indexed as women in groups, women in
school, and Natalie Zahles School. I found eight cards that had the
similar large number of enlargements. They were all from Natalie Zahles
School collection.
I was looking at the images through the guiding gaze of the archivists.
What were they pointing me to? Girls hold hands, entangled and comfortable,
in the context of the school.
I asked if I could copy these nine archival cards. Usually you have to go
through the Danish Royal Librarys Photo Studio, and pay a lot of money,
but I was allowed to copy the archival cards just as they were. I was
interested in the cards as a whole. Interested in the structure of the
original copy and the enlargements glued onto the little card. We, the
archive and myself, seemed to share an excitement about these photos.
After having photographed the archival cards, I left the library, thinking
I had some material to continue to work on. Looking back at that time I
realize that the initial excitement was where I should have started.
Instead, I hijacked these images for a more general interest in how history
is written and how archives are structured, a kind of archive fever. It
felt like a safe place to start.

I printed out all of the enlargements. These images were installed on a 12foot long wall for an exhibition, attempting to follow the gaze of the
archivist who made the enlargements. An installation without desire that
follows the allure of the archival indexing system.
Why was I so drawn to these images to begin with? It was not just the
images, but the images paired with the context I found them in. What was
this archive and why had we felt the same desire? Or more precisely, the
desire and the excitement came through their enlargements. Would I have
been drawn to the images without the archive so clearly pointing to
specific moments? I will never know.
It was difficult, because I felt an excitement that went beyond just simply
noticing something in the images. It was also a desire for something I
privately find desirable. It was the feeling of being pointed to see
something, something hidden in the images. Two girls holding hands, how
close and comfortable they were, some looking into each others eyes, some
confidently looking back at the camera and the photographer.
These were class photographs, not a setting where I would be close with my
female friends or lovers. That is the thing, there is no way of knowing
whether these girls/young women share my desire for women. What I see or
rather feel when I look at these images is that desire. Am I projecting?
There is no way of knowing. That is the potential of these images. You will
never know; it makes it a very private experience. I will not research more.
Let me just enjoy the images. I want to see what I want to see!
Left is also a consideration of the archive and the archivists. They also
needed to look back, to find something, to find a history. How do I
identify, how do I find footing. Sometimes through a backwards gaze.
I researched into the women who started the archive. One woman stood out, was more accessible. A somewhat famous Danish historian. Her book Womens
Love of Women attempts to write a lesbian history of Copenhagen in the
mid1800s-mid1900s. She spends a long time laying out the particular
environment around Natalie Zahles School, the first Girls School in
Copenhagen and the founder Natalie Zahle herself. She acknowledges that
maybe there is no way of knowing how to categorize these relations and
gives a personal account of her own love of women and how she identifies as
a lesbian.
In the mysterious space of these images, the archive and with the research
into the founders of the archive, I realized that my gaze was directed by a
generation of lesbian separatist women of my mothers generation. I found
connections, a speculative ease and excitement in how we share these
moments across time.
The sound of reading in time is through my desiring gaze.
I want to share some of these images here. Share a desire in the pages of
this publication. Visions are built, are formulated and held onto through a
diverse and complex way of understanding time, conversation, community and
forms of collectivization.
I feel a collective pull through these images in time. And I find it
important to share these, stand by them and invite other in. Like the women
in the archive had envisioned. This requires a reading in many directions
and for many desires.

All images courtesy of the Danish Womens Photo Archive

10

11

12

The Moment
by
Fia-Stina Sandlund

13

INT. A BUDDHIST CENTER, MANHATTAN EVENING

A large room with wooden floors. An altar with symmetrical
flower arrangements, small metal pots filled with water,
burning incense, a gong and a framed portrait of a chubby
man. Beside the photography a yesterdays burger on a plate
and an empty beer bottle. We understand that the man in the
picture recently passed away and that the food has been
sacrificed in his honor. FRANK, a man in his fifties with an
exceptionally big nose dressed in a suit, is sitting on a
throne on top of the altar. He smiles lovingly while watching
a group of approximately fifty people who are placed in front
of him in pairs, facing each other on blue pillows on the
floor. Several large fans in the corners of the room creates
a white, soothing noise. Sounds of mumbling and laughter. A
ticking clock.
FRANK
So, what I want you to do now, is
to ask each other that very same
question. But, this time in groups
of ... Lets say five.
The people are re-grouping.
FRANK (CONTD)
So, again ... What is holding you
back in your life?
We are zooming in on seven people sitting together in a
circle. Three men and four women: FIA-STINA, a blond woman in
her late thirties dressed in black. ZOE, a dark haired woman
in her twenties wearing a purple embroidery dress with tiny
mirrors on the chest. DREW, a man in his forties with wide
open eyes and greasy blonde hair. MICHELLE, a woman in her
forties with black, shiny hair and a nose ring. TARA, a woman
in her thirties with Heidi Braids. MICHAEL, a tanned man in
his fifties with a shaved head. MATTHEW, a dark haired, slim,
blushing man in his twenties dressed in a light blue office
shirt. Theyre all being quiet. Giving each other nervous
looks. Tara giggles. Matthew scratches his armpit.
ZOE
May I make a suggestion?
MICHAEL
Yes!
ZOE
When Fia-Stina was asking me what
was holding me back before ...
There was this one word coming back
to me ... And, that was the word
Lack. So I thought ...
(MORE)

14

ZOE (CONT'D)
Perhaps it was the same thing for
you guys? Like there was one word
in particular that ...
Drew is staring at Zoe.
DREW
Anxiety.
MICHELLE
Ok, mine was Hurry.
FIA-STINA
Sorry, what did you say?
MICHELLE
Being in a rush. Hurry!.
FIA-STINA
Ok.
Drew is staring at each person who talks.
TARA
(hesitates)
Ambition.
MICHAEL
Speed!.
MATTHEW
Meaning.
FIA-STINA
Mine was Fear ... I guess.
Theyre all looking at each other. Matthew is scratching his
armpit.
ZOE
Isnt this wonderful?
DREW
What? Whats so wonderful?
ZOE
That we can sit here, and be so
open with each other, without ...
Being awkward.
Drew is staring at each one of them, one at a time. Matthew
takes a deep breath.

15

MATTHEW
I find it pretty awkward actually.
Matthew laughs hysterically. Tara is playing with her Heidi
braids. Zoe is changing into a new, more advanced yoga
position.
MICHAEL
Isnt that whats so great then?
That we can sit here ... And, its
okay that its awkward?
EVERYBODY
Yeah!
ZOE
Yeah!
DREW
Yeah, yeah! Yeah!
Matthew is scratching his forearm. Drew is watching Matthews
scratching hand. The fans are making that white noise. The
clock is ticking.
MICHAEL
For me ...
Michael now has Drews complete attention.
MICHAEL (CONTD)
... Im somewhere between
collapsing and saving the world.
DREW
I see ...
Drew points at Michaels head.
DREW (CONTD)
So, theres a lot going on there?
MICHAEL
My God!
(staring back at Drew,
mesmerized)
Just ... Just because you just said
that. I suddenly feel ... Fine.
Michael stands up.

16

MICHAEL (CONTD)
I think you cured me man!
(to everybody)
He cured me!
DREW
Really?
Frank hits the gong.
FRANK
How was that?

17

THE PEOPLEMOVER A Demonstration Poem (1968)

by Mary Ellen Solt
text by Clara t Lpez Menndez

0. EXPOSE: Mary Ellen Solt

The way in which I encountered Mary
Ellen Solt is one of those transtemporal meetings mediated by the
expanded field that is the textual
reality. I encountered her through her
work, with a text in my hands from a
temporal and thematic space I didnt
expect. Two years later, I find myself
immersed in researching her
compositions, one particular work of
hers, and simultaneously carrying out
a curatorial project whose methodology
has been intensely if quite obliquely
drawn out of her writing. This essay
is a tribulated tribute to her work
THE PEOPLEMOVER (1968) and an attempt
to discern the reciprocal transfers
between her work and mine.
The first time I got the opportunity
to read THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) was
thanks to the re-printing that the
Swedish experimental literary magazine
OEI did of it in 2010. The editor of
that volume, Sergio Bessa, expert in
Concrete Poetry and one of the voices
I have interviewed for the preparation
of this text, was contacted by Mary
Ellen herself. The reason of her
message was not the compilation of an
anthology of her work, but to ask for
a critical revision of the time when
she compiled other concrete poets work.
In 1970 she published one of the first
anthologies of concrete poetry,
Concrete Poetry A World View. This
text has been and is referential for
the field of studies around concrete
poetry as a movement, and possibly the
best well-known work of Mary Ellen
Solt1. However, due to time scarcity
and a certain precariousness, the book
turned out with some mistakes, a fact
that only came to her knowledge when
she was in her eighties. She contacted
1

Mary Ellen Solt was called to put together

the ultimate narrative genesis of concrete
poetry, thus becoming the principal historian
of what has been described as the first global
literary movement.
Antonio Sergio Bessa, Foreword, Towards a
Theory of Concrete Poetry, OEI, No. 51, 2010. p
15.

18

Sergio Bessa with the aim to repair

those inaccuracies. And this way
Sergio got to know her personally.
Every person I have contacted so far
for the purpose of this paper refers
to Mary Ellens personality and charm
before even thinking about her work.
Despite being such a female-artist
clich the appreciation of a
sensitive and emotional self instead
of the sophistication of her writing
Mary Ellen worked her way into an
extremely male-dominated field, where
she never enjoyed the prestige or
recognition of her male counterparts,
but in which nevertheless she played a
crucial role. She had the opportunity
to get in contact with the literary
world of New York City between 1948
and 1955, moment when she decided to
devote herself to literature, and,
specifically, to poetry. Trained in
music and literature2, she moved
following her husband, a history
professor, to the small university
town of Bloomington, Indiana, in 1955.
Despite the change of environment, her
engagement and stamina drew her to web
an analogic network of information,
communication and exchanges with the
international movement of concrete
poetry. Her relationship with William
Carlos Williams, about whose work she
wrote one of the earliest and most
complete theoretical analyzes
William Carlos Williams: Poems in the
American Idiom and her participation
in the Poetry Center during her time
in New York, became two points of
entry through which she would leverage
in the generation of an international
movement, of which Bloomington,
2

One of Mary Ellen Solts greatest assets as

a writer was an ear finely tuned to speech,
which she put to good use not only in the
essays on Williams but also in her exploration
of poetry as a whole. Early musical training
was the natural foundation for a talent honed
during her teenage years in the Great
Depression, as she accompanied her father, an
itinerant Methodist minister, on his travels
from city to city.
Antonio Sergio Bessa, ibid. pp. 15-16.

Indiana, was a node. Her daughter

Susan, now a teacher in the Theater
Department at CalArts, remembers,
despite of her early age back then,
the constant stream of people,
literates and poets coming from Brazil,
Switzerland, Mexico and Sweden (among
other places). Through her house
passed Augusto de Campos, Eugen
Gomriger, Haroldo de Campos or vynd
Fahlstrm, among others, all of them
coexisting with the small cultural
microcosm of Bloomington, of which she
was a particularly idiosyncratic part.
Her students were also often messmates
at her house, where they had the
opportunity to meet these
international poets while having
dinner. So recalls Margaret Wolfson, a
student of hers in the late 1960s and
early 1970s who was the last one to
organize a performance of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) ca. 1975. In her
memory, Mary Ellen was always
welcoming and warm to those among her

students or classmates she kept

taking classes in the University until
she left Bloomington, for instance, in
experimental design or electronic
music who showed a sensitivity for
poetry and art. She is described by
Wolfson as someone who always enjoyed
the company of younger and
enthusiastic intelligences; she felt
inspired by the input provided by new
generations whose ideals and
principles hadnt yet been bent by the
compromises of adulthood.
Among her poetic creations and out of
an act of collective experimental
writing, coming out of her engagement
with the lively brisk artistic
community in Bloomington, she gave the
final form to THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) in
1968, after a series of more or less
spontaneous performances, stemming
from action and reunion, voicing the
political declamations that burned in
the throats of so many American
citizens during that period.

1. THE PEOPLEMOVER
1968
A Demonstration Poem

THE PEOPLEMOVER (1968) is an atypical

theater play. Dramatic plays, as many
other textual pieces, tend to be
conceived by an author, a
primordial source that performs the
magical creative procedure by which
a fictional or documental reality is
captured amongst the pages that
constitute the text. Sometimes
awaiting to be uttered, appropriated
by other voices and transformed every
time the performance of its narrative
takes place, theatrical texts
generally maintain the authority of
the authors voice. However, that was
not the case for THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968). The conception of
the piece is described by Mary Ellen
in the foreword to the only edition
of the text from 1978 and the
people who were part of it in its
different stages and incarnations as
a collective process, a long and
generative procedure with not one but

many directing hands. The composition

of what came to be THE

PEOPLEMOVER(1968) started in the

summer of 1968. Two things happened
then: Mary Ellen and her daughters,
Susan and Catherine, made together a
series of posters that graphically
reflected particular episodes of the
conflictive reality taking place in
the USA during that period, and the
Solt family travelled to Los Angeles
to visit fellow poet and friend
Emmett Williams, who was about to
start teaching at CalArts3. While in
LA, Mary Ellen went with her
daughters to Disneyland, where they
had the opportunity to test a new
attraction: The Peoplemover(Fig.1).
The Peoplemover was a small train
that served as a mean of
transportation for the crowd of
visitors that came to the amusement
park. This event triggered Mary Ellen
Solts poetic imagination, apparently
3

Conversation with Susan Solt, March 12th 2013.

19

being not only frustrated but

infuriated by the fact that, in 1968,
with the very tense and complicated
political climate lived in the USA,
the materialization of The
Peoplemover was a mechanism for the
further alienation of American
citizens4. Mary Ellen Solt grieved
the political situation of this
country5 her daughter Susan said
while addressing the same
circumstance. She couldnt accept
that what moved the people
politically and emotionally was
appropriated by the Disney industry
in such a de-politicized and
utilitarian manner. I would not want
to point out to a particular
situation as some sort of mythical
origin for the composition of the
play, however, it was ratified by
Mary Ellen herself, that the title
for the demonstration poem comes from
her fortuitous encounter with
Disneylands transport attraction.
Between July 1968 and the 20th of
February 1970 the creation of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) took place. After
the creation of the posters, for
which she also credited her
daughters,6 seeking its place in that
world, THE PEOPLEMOVER poem grew in
response to the demands of particular
performances; an action, rhythm and
interaction that through a series of
iterations, became a text. THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) was at first image
and affect anger and frustration
then words that served the already
existing purposes that got them
together. While speaking of the work
of William Carlos Williams, Mary
Ellen writes about the poem as an
instrument, a device in the
intersection or in relation with four
elementary notions: Thought, Object,
Act and Word, being the poets job
the coordination of their encounter
in the closest way possible to the
objects of reality that were to be
addressed. The origin of the poem

Conversation with Antonio Sergio Bessa, May

17th 2013.
5
Coversation with Susan Solt, March 12th 2013.
6
In the dedication of THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968),
Reno, Nevada: West Coast Poetry Review, 1978.

20

Fig. 1. Disneylands The Peoplemover, 1994.

Courtesy of www.peopleforthepeoplemover.org

contact with environment and

response is action; and the process
of the poem discovery and
formalization of the relationship
between that action and words is
action.7 Even if Solt is here
speaking about William Carlos
Williams work, her words resonate
with the aims and components of her
own writing, and particularly with
those of THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968). The
poem is understood as a field of
action8, the environment being
crucial for its inception, almost a
reaction to it. The poet is a
creative agent that explores the
connection between reality
experience, the actual and language.
Even in this early stage of her
literary career (when she analyzed
Williams work), she shows an acute
sensibility for the intimate
relationship of poetry and
performance, referring to the poem as
a word-dance9, and marking the plane
of existence of the poem the network
of factors that result in its
creation and not only its textual
7

Mary Ellen Solt, William Carlos Williams:

Poems in the American Idiom, Towards a Theory
of Concrete Poetry, OEI, No. 51, 2010. p 55.
8
Mary Ellen Solt, ibid, p 56.
9
These principles of poetics suggest that the
poet begins with native linguistic materials
(speech acts, speeches, utterances, records,
accountings, historical texts), seeks to
establish a relationship in both form and
meaning between language and experience, and
hopes to achieve a dance of words.
Mary Ellen Solt, ibidem.

materialization.10 The first

performance acknowledged in the
foreword to the play happened on the
7th of August of 1968 in collaboration
with Donald Bells experimental
design class in the University of
Indiana. The action is described as a
dadaesque demonstration performed
to the Stars and Stripes Forever by
John Philip Sousa,11 in which the
design students marched carrying the
posters that Mary Ellen had designed
with her daughters that summer.
The second pre-electoral
demonstration happened on the 22nd of
September 1968, in James Brodys lawn
in the outskirts of Bloomington. The
demonstrators this time were the
members of Fiasco group, an array of
painters, poets, musicians, dancers
and other kinds of visual artists
that enjoyed meeting regularly on
Sunday afternoons to criticize,
admire and discuss art and politics.
Among the concurrence of this
informal demonstrative meeting was
Timothy Mayer, a young student in the
Master of Graphic Design at Indiana
University. Mayer, the credited
photographer of the picture (Fig.3)
that illustrates the cover of the
West Coast Poetry Review version of
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968), collaborated
with Solt as a student, making the
layout for some of her poetry
portfolios. Mayer is retired now and
enjoys the little pleasures of
renovating his house together with
his wife. His memory has, almost
willingly it feels, decided to fail
and remembered very little about the
event. He remembered the picture,
being young and hopeful, surrounded
by artists that inspired him, in a
small island of cultural avant-garde
in the heart of a brass rural America.
However, his memory gets better for
some bitter parts of the story. Mayer,
together with another Graphic Design
student, David Noblet, worked on the
layout for the first publication of
Concrete Poetry A World View, which
was published as part of an academic

journal by the Indiana University

Artes Hispanicas/Hispanic Arts.
Afterwards, Mayer claims, Willis
Barnstone, renowned poet and editor
of the Artes Hispanicas/Hispanic Arts
as well as of the Indiana University
Press, rebound the layout in hard
cover and re-published the anthology
without crediting them for the design
work. The publication won a design
prize in an American university press
competition.

10

12

Mary Ellen Solt, ibidem.

Mary Ellen Solt, THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968),
About THE PEOPLEMOVER, not numbered page.
11

The picture that you sent

may well have been taken by
me -- though I cannot be
absolutely positive. I did
attend and participate in the
performance -- which took
place in the yard of a home
on Sare Road south of town.
At the time the property was
rural. Now it sits in the
suburbs.
I was a MFA graduate student
in graphic design and had the
opportunity to work with Mary
Ellen. I along with Dave
Noblet, a fellow grad student,
designed the Artes
Hispanicas/Hispanic Arts, A
World Look at Concrete Poetry,
Volume 1 Number 3 & 4,
Winter/Spring 1968. Indiana
University Press picked up
the design and print over-run
bound it in hard cover and
issued it as Concrete Poetry:
A World View.
The IU Press edition won a
design award for the book and
took credit for the design.
Being lowly grad students -Dave and I were removed from
the credits. The production
costs for Artes
Hispanicas/Hispanic Arts were
such a burden that it broke
the bank and killed-off the
journal.12

Timothy Mayer. Re: Question regarding Mary

Ellen Solt Message to the author. 22 January
2013. E-mail.

21

Fig. 2. Timothy Mayer. Untitled. 22nd September 1968. Black and white reproduction from the
original in color. Documentation of the second performance of THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) in James Brodys
lawn with the posters designed by Mary Ellen Solt with her daughters Susan and Catherine. Susan
recalls being there: the child partially hidden behind the man in dark jeans and light t-shirt that
gives his back to us.

The occasion for the representation

of the performative demonstration was
provided by the members of the Fiasco
group, who, as aforementioned,
regularly engaged in a collective
creative process, meeting regularly
to realize crits of each others
work. Among its members were James
Brody founding member and host of
the forum and Franz Kamin, two
experimental music composers that
were part of the artistic scene
orbiting around Indiana University.
As Susan Solt puts it, the
demonstration was almost like a game
in James lawn, however, it stirred a
conversation that procured the
reasons to provide some text for
those actions13. The people that took
part in the action, what Mayer

describes more like a happening,14

felt the need of some text that
accompanied movement and signs. In
this collaborative dialogical process,
the demands and suggestions of the
participants, the environment not
only the larger, national environment,
but the direct and intimate, the
everyday surrounding in which larger
issues transpire shapes and
translates into the work. This
methodology seems to be not exclusive
of Mary Ellen Solts work, but also
of the creative community of
Bloomington in that particular time,
thinking of how Fiasco operated
almost like a think tank for the
local art scene. There are little
records or traces of Fiasco as an
artistic group. In my conversations
14

13

22

Conversation with Susan Solt, March 12th 2013.

Conversation with Timothy Mayer, May 22nd

2013.

with Susan Solt she advised me to get

in contact with both Franz Kamin and
James Brody, two characters that
seemed to have a central role in the
dynamics of Fiasco, and that were
present in the representation
occurred on the 22nd of September1968.
However, to our dismay, Kamin and
Brody died together in a car accident
that occurred in April 2010. We both
found out while trying to reach
them.15
The progression towards the final
form of THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968)
continued, rapidly transforming out
of the feedback and comments received
each time it took place. The next
iteration of the play happened on the
16th of November 1968 at The Owl, in
Bloomington, right after Richard M.
Nixons presidential election. Short
historical texts with statements from
the past were read by Mary Ellen
herself, while the posters were shown
to the audience. At the end of the
action patriotic music played and the
audience demonstrated for the first
time, for the aim of this
demonstration poem was not only to
sprawl from the action into poetry
but to stir up action from the
utterance. The goal of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968), as it name
declares, is to move people, move
them into action toward the
restoration and defense of the
debased democratic institutions, to
shake them out of the dull
complacency promoted by governmental
authorities. THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) is
a book of hope, hope in an American
project and the possibilities of a
society in which Mary Ellen Solt
believed and grieved for. This is
perhaps one of the most conflictive
points for this particular
contemporary reader, since the
feeling is that trusting the State is
not an option anymore. The optimism
that THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) oozes,
despite the tragic and brutal nature
of some of the issues it addresses
15

FJO. Two Composers Killed in Car Crash New

Music Box. April 13th 2010.
http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/TwoComposers-Killed-in-Car-Crash/
Consulted on May 27th 2013.

political murders, Vietnam, Nixon,

injustice at large contrasts with
the current mistrust in nation-state
representativity, todays sense of
powerlessness about the course of
conventional representative politics.
The hope of today, our hope of today,
is found in creative collective
formulations; structures of support
that allow the existences of those in
the margins, that reinforce the lives
negated by governmental apparatuses.
The next and last representation of
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) of which there
are records was performed on the 20th
of February 1970. The play was
included as part of the extended
program of the exhibition EXPOSE:
CONCRETE POETRY (Fig.4), curated by
Mary Ellen Solt, Claus Clver and Tom
Ockerse at the Indiana Memorial Union,
in the Indiana University. The
exhibition brought the works of
concrete poets from Argentina,
Austria, Belgium, Brazil,
Czechoslovakia (where Mary Ellen
spent a period of time studying the
concrete poetry scene), Germany,
Japan and Spain among many other
places, together with the
contribution of faculty and students
of the Indiana University, and it
coordinated a parallel event program,
responsible for hosting extended
forms16 of concrete poetry such as
experimental electronic music
concerts, poetry readings, and the
full representation of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968). This was the first
time that the play got its full
multimedia treatment, as it is
described in the stage directions
that accompany the text in its
printed form. The historical texts
grew longer this occasion, being the
basis of the latter montage that was
published by the West Coast Poetry
Review, and it was read by Rose Daley,
William H. Harris, Leo Solt and Mary
Ellen herself.17 Joseph Zentis, a MA
16

EXPOSE: CONCRETE POETRY Brochure. February

1970. Museum of Modern Art Archives, NY.
Collection JBH. Series. Folder: 1, 4.31.
17
Trying to get some information about the two
unknown performers, I got into an interesting
confusion, curious enough to be mentioned.
While researching about William H. Harris, I
got a possible match that turned out to be the

23

student in Comparative Literature,

projected with a 35mm slide projector
the information about the quotations
of historical texts that were being
read. Those excerpts were read by
four characters, which instead of
being individualized roles are
described in the texts as types,
the four main actors of the political
situation in the late 60s: a white
man, a white woman, a black woman and
a black man. Simultaneously, quite
demonstrations took place in the
aisles and fragments of patriotic
songs and marches played at the
beginning and the end, when the
audience was invited to join the
demonstration, although, as Mary
Ellen relates in the preface to THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968), most of them
declined.18
This is the last time that THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) was performed in
its fully developed shape, presenting
all the different components that
gradually were getting attached to
what started as a series of hand
painted posters out of political
frustration and the belief that a
demonstration poem was possible.
2. exhibition detour:
1971 Sonora House moving
exhibition
While speaking to Susan Solt about
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968), she recalled
another representation arranged by
two of Mary Ellen Solts Comparative
husband of Emily Harris, and with her, one of
the founding members of the Symbionese
Liberation Army. Emily Harris studied a BA in
Language Arts by the Indiana University in
Bloomington and graduated in 1973, after which
they moved to Berkley and later formed the
leftist radical group Symbionese Liberation
Army. The possibility that Bill Harris would
have been part of the representation of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) before becoming a federal
political outlaw was just mesmerizing, allowing
such a round narrative of the power of poetry
for the inspiration of action. From action
through words to action back again. However,
despite the initial euphoria about my finding,
I discovered another William H. Harris, an
African-American history PhD student, probably
studying under Leo Solt (Mary Ellens husband)
and a much more likely candidate to have
performed in THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968). Although
anecdotal, still worthwhile mentioning.
18
Mary Ellen Solt. THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968),
About THE PEOPLEMOVER, not numbered page.

24

Literature and Concrete Poetry

students, Margaret Wolfson and Judith
de Saintcroix (back then, Judith
Martin), occurred around 1971.19 This
event does not figure in the preface
to the printed edition of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968), and it is so
perhaps because its organization was
framed as a moving art exhibition,
a display mechanism conceived in
order to exhibit THE PEOPLEMOVERs
posters in a manner that was not just
merely hanging them on the walls,
which Margaret Wolfson considered too
dry and de-politicized for them.20 The
date of this event remains unclear
for Wolfson, who recalls being 21
years old at the time, which would
situate the piece in 1971, but who
determinately rejected such early
date, referring to the summer of 1975
or 1976. She and Judith de Saintcroix
were students of Mary Ellen in
Bloomington, part of the gang of
young pupils that Solt took as her
protgs. Together, after finishing
college in Indiana, they started the
Sonora House, a culture and
educational project in the Catskill
Mountains in upstate New York, and
decided to begin their cultural labor
with THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968) as part of
the first summer festival at the
Sonora House. The initiative occurred
in a small mountain community, thanks
to a generous CETA grant21 that
awarded them with $50,000 to start
their cultural community project
the fact that they received a CETA
grant certifies that the project took
place after December 1973. The
moving art exhibition, as Margaret
Wolfson describes it herself, was

19

Susan Solt. Re: Berlin Project with the

Peoplemover Message to the

author. March 12th 2013. E-mail.

Conversation with Margaret Wolfson, May 15th
2013.
21
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act,
was a United States federal law enforced by
President Richard Nixon in December of 1973 to
train workers and provide them with jobs in the
public service.
Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T., "Statement
on Signing the Comprehensive Employment and
Training Act of 1973, December 28, 1973", The
American Presidency Project, retrieved 2012-0830.
20

conceived as a march performed by the

artists that were involved in the
Once inside the firehouse, black and
white stills from video documentation
of the events described in THE
PEOPLEMOVER JKFs assassination,
Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, etc.
were projected and music played, both
elements interwoven with the
historical text excerpts that were
being read.
While the audience that belonged to
the local community remained seated
in benches inside of the firehouse,
other factions of artists involved in
the community project became part of
the crowd and sang in tune with the
music. Despite the coordinated and
composed nature of the described
performance, Margaret made very clear
during our conversation that it was
not a fully developed performance of
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968), but a moving
art exhibition envisioned to
accommodate Mary Ellen Solts graphic
poems. Some elements of the play were
maintained, as she understood them as
fundamental in order to apprehend the
posters, which were the object she
was intending to properly frame.
Therefore, no characters were
embodied. I asked her what Mary Ellen
thought about this free adaptation of
her text, to which Wolfson answered
that she had never met someone as
flexible and open to change as Mary
Ellen Solt. She didnt consider the
play to be her work, but the outcome
of the interaction of agents, action
and environment, and thus understood
the openness of its destiny as a
result of the elasticity of its
provenance.
This was probably the last time that
some iteration of THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) took place before
Antonio Sergio Bessa found a box with
the last copies of its published
version in Mary Ellens house while
he was working in the anthology of
her work for OEI. He asked Susan
about that material. She briefly
explained what it was, she mentioned
lightly its theatrical nature. She
said that it didnt rouse much

community project, and it lead to the

villages firehouse.
attention back then. People didnt
like it that much.22
The Sonora Houses project doesnt
exist anymore.
3. Conclusion and Continuum.
The Peoplemover Now: Acycle,
NGBK, Future.
Back in the month of May 2011 I
opened the pages of OEI to find THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) hidden among its
pages, and I while I was reading I
could barely believe my eyes.
Margaret Wolfson said that Mary Ellen
Solt had a special way to inspire
young people, something reciprocal
and continuous until she had to give
up teaching due to her health
problems.
When I encountered this theater play,
its actions came to me from a distant
past whose political engagements were
vaguely familiar, and despite the
chronological and geopolitical chasm
between us, it inspired me and set me
into action. Margaret Wolfson said
that she was approximately my age
when she organized the moving art
exhibition of THE PEOPLEMOVER at the
Sonora House.
During the summer of 2011 I started,
together with the Finish curator
Vappu Jalonen, a theory reading group
that would come to be named out of a
mistake, as many good things in life
Acycle. From a series of lose
meetings devoted to the analysis of
the different texts brought in by its
members, Acycle rapidly developed
into an artistic action group, that
performed some actions and readings
in Berlin and Copenhagen. During one
of our sessions, in the winter of
2011, I decided to contribute to our
readings by bringing in my copy of
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968), in the edition
re-printed by OEI in 2010. We read it
out loud, changing characters and,
afterwards, impressions about the
text. We needed to do something with
it, not just taking it as an object,
22

Conversation with Antonio Sergio Bessa, 17th

May 2013.

25

but elaborating out of it,

translating its impetus into the
problematics of today, critically
assessing those points we felts
strongly opposed to like its
support of patriotism and the
American project and stressing the
way in which they have transformed
into the current conditions. We
wanted to write our own Peoplemover,
from scratch, with action and
interaction preceding the textual
capture, and with THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) as an ongoing
backdrop, an inspiration and the
source of a writing and curatorial
methodology.
In our project, WIR SPIELEN, we23 are
trying to observe and evaluate
current conditions of culture
production for entities and
individuals working as collectives or
with collectivities, trying to
understand how this operation behaves
as a political strategy and its
possible inscription within a system
of immaterial labor, and reflecting
on the commercialization of
collaborative, process-based art
projects in relations to cognitive
capitalism.
We are employing an interpretation of
the technique of the collage and
textual deconstruction taken from THE
PEOPLEMOVER(1968) not only in the
textual production that we are
engaging with the collective
production of a theater play that
will serve as record and
documentation of the conversations
and conclusions reached throughout
the process but also in the way we
are including a multiplicity of
sources, as textual participants. We
are inviting artists and groups, but
also inspirational texts that are
being included into a (soon) public
online archive, and to which not only
23

This we is partial fixity of a larger we

that composes the multiplicity of Acycle. This
temporal crystallization was intended in order
to be able to attend the responsibilities of
organizing a project with a culture institution,
for which we needed a certain level of
commitment. The temporal we of this project is
constituted by Freja Bckman, Merja Hannikainen,
Annika Hgner, Vappu Jalonen, Bogg Johanna
Karlsson and Clara T. Lpez.

26

the invited participants but also

audience members and workshop
partakers are contributing. These
texts are worked around, cut, pasted,
reworked, hoping to materialize the
process by which others words and
thoughts become ours, shape and
provoke our reactions. Speech acts
that stem from and provoke activity.
We share a concern for the
institution, the infrastructural
framework that contains and enables
our proposition, but that also shapes
our possibilities and that its
rapidly changing in a cultural
landscape like Berlin. Spaces and
chances are shifting fast in a city
beloved by real estate speculators
and the art market. Culture
institutions are changing their staff,
their logos, their programming and
funding structures. Neighborhoods are
transforming their populations, ones
leaving the spaces they have been
living in for decades, transnational
subjects moving into inflated-rent
apartments. These are conditions that
we would like to address, but as Mary
Ellen puts it herself, could the
voice of the poet be heard above the
lying political rhetoric and the roar
of protest ()? It did not seem
likely.24 Who are the most suitable
figures to address these issues and
how is it possible to do so within
the pages of a poem, within the walls
of a culture institution? Mary Ellen
had doubts of her right to give voice
to an abstract plurality, but gave it
a try, and so are we.
This project is still in the process
of being made, and its also enabling
a fresh approach to Solts work. Mary
Ellen is mostly recognized by her
concrete flower poetry and her
editing work for the concrete poetry
anthology, THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968)
remains as an obscure fraction within
her production. My work with it
splits at this point, on one hand,
committed to its research, the
inquiry about the circumstances of
its production, on the other hand,
24

Mary Ellen Solt. THE PEOPLEMOVER. About THE

PEOPLEMOVER. Reno, Nevada: West Coast Poetry
Review. 1978.

its transpiration into actuality and

the inscription of its sophisticated
methodological elaborations into
current political and cultural
stances.
The intent was not to explain or to
proffer solutions but to weave a
series of tapestries of American
words some in a new context of time
that could hopefully serve to
illuminate to some degree the tragic
events occurred during 1968, a year
of great crisis in our lives and in
our history.25

Fig. 3. Documentation of the first event for

the project WIR SPIELEN, a workshop with
dramaturge Amelia Bande and Mary Ellen Solts
THE PEOPLEMOVER(1968). It occurred in Berlin on
the 16th and 17th of March, 2013.
Photography: Merja Hannikainen

25

Mary Ellen Solt, ibidem.

27

Prologue: I wrote this short story about a woman in prison in

1978, much later, in 2002, I picked up the same subject not remembering my previous writing.

28

Lena Molander, 1978

Prisoner on leave,
eons of time

Every day for two weeks I have counted hours and minutes. I have
stared at the clock hanging on the wall. Now I am standing in front
of the door, the warden opens it. I step out and a fresh smell of
newly cut grass hits me.
-See you Monday, he says with a small smile.
The gate closes and the streets are mine for forty-eight hours.

On the bus I plan my weekend. I want to be together with my husband and my son. I want to avoid my old friends. What a feeling!
Two days and two nights without walls closing up on me.

There. I stand a while in front of the door, swallowing. Decide

not to ring the bell, instead using my own key. Sticking the key
in the keyhole and turning it. Nothing happens. Damn key. I repeat
the same formula. The door remains closed. One of my nails breaks,
when I give it a try for the third time. Damn you shitty lock.
I ring the bell, but cant hear any steps. I pound. I knock. My
hands are still holding the door while I slowly slide downwards.

-Oops, what is happening here? Did the little lady forget her key?
No, they moved last winter, in December I think it was. Cant you
see what is written on the door? It says Dirkson.
Silent again. I walk downstairs, towards the basement. My pocket gets stuck in a door handle and I regain balance sitting on a
kick-sled. The cheeks are already wet and the old
anxiety-spot by the left armpit knots, just as the first day at
the institution. The jacket gets a puddle under my chin.

29

I must have fallen asleep, for when I wake up I cant see the
bench or the litterbin anymore. The bench for me and Matt. We became three, Ben and Matt and Vera. Time lays on me.

I go, I go out walking. Ive never been a woman of achievements. I

sadden over trouble. Why did I take the money? It just was there,
as easily available as a blind ladys wallet. It was almost without an owner, almost mine. Ah, done is done. There is nothing to
do about it, but what the hell happened when I hit the guard in
the back of his head with dads dumbbells. Sweet little Vera, weet
little Vera. Eet little Vera. Damn keys. Imagine what a little
eety Vera could do.

I buy a double cheeseburger and continue towards the beach. A police car comes driving towards me. The lights are flashing and
they throw a bluish light to the left, to the right, round, round
and back we go again.

Matts mom lives here. I walk up the stairs, three steps at a

time.
Matt and Ben are not home. The neighbour said that they moved out.
Do you know where?
Nope.
When did they move, last winter? I wrote to them all winter and
they answered me. And now they moved, and no new address is left
for me. Ben is my son, I have the right to know where they are.
Where is he? Answer me.
Matt didnt leave the new address.
Did he find someone new? Someone who is not locked up for three
years.
You only reopen old wounds. Ben needs a mother and a family and
Matt wants to have a woman by his side.
And what about me, what do I need? I need nice surprises. Dont

30

I? This was a damn good surprise, a really super well turned out
surprise. You tell that to Matt, the big saint who promised to
show up. Vera darling, I love you, I would have done the same. I
will be here for you when you get back. Here I am now outside the
walls, tell your favourite son that he is a really splendid man, a
damn good man. He should know.

And then she looks at me and tells me that everything will be

fine. You are usually so good at coping, sweet Vera. But what happened in jail, you are so different and so skinny. You must pull
yourself together. Well it was good to see you.

That was all I needed. Never been the idol in this family. More of
a backing vocalist.

Forever means for ever. Forever is now fornever. If I dont find

them today I will never find them.

The street is as empty as the cell. I havent got the strength to

try. What will I do when I get free and get out and I dont have
anyone? Impossible to get a job, impossible to find a place to
stay. Thats the way it is. All people look past me. No human value. No self-confidence.
Thanks and good-bye.

Three years later we find Vera in a tobacco shop at x-street. It

was about to turn bad that evening. She was robbed she hit her
head in the pavement and couldnt get up. She was unconscious when
found by the police. One more hour and it would have been too late
they said at the emergency ward. One more hour, always the same
problem, one hour too much, one hour too little.

Sweet Vera will always be okay.

31

Guardian Spririt of the Waters by Odilon Redon (1878)

32

OCULARITY
Jess Arndt
combing the web for new glasses (Danish, Japanese? acetate, titanium?) as
procrastination for thinking about: The Visionary, scanning page after page with zero
irony until duh I catch myself redhanded shopping for my topic instead of writing it, like
it could be so banal, like anything could be, barely a thought that also occurs now:
sitting in a split-rail outhouse on a bluff overlooking Boundary Pass into Canada and the
dishpan colored salt water that sweeps south toward White Rock (white from bird shit)
as I also shit, eat an apple, think about what it means to put something in (fresh, crisp)
and plop something out at the same exact moment
on this same bluff years ago light suddenly flooded inan inexplicable alien swath
obliterating the stands of fir, the crumpled yews sometimes a mammoth but teetering
cedar, its scary here at night in the blacknessa perfect backdrop for Ted Bundy-ites
but then this silent white light was even more eerie, too bright to see
I could bring up lighthouses: a protofeminist image despite (because of?) the giant
erect cock but they make me kind of queasy, sick, that idea of constancy, of waiting and
watching so steadily: patient inaction except for showing what falls within the band of
light
other words for visionary: prophetic, starry-eyed, in the clouds. In Jose Saramagos
book Blindness an entire world goes milky-white and the citizens do horrible things to
each other. But we were already horrible, isnt that what hes saying? So what about
Odilon Redons Guardian Spirit of the Waters? That big head hanging down over the
water, yellow and gray. Seeing forward
life is pitched that way: falling ahead. My cabin is tiny, 10 by 17. It pokes over the bluff
where the land stops short, comes to a final brief point and so besides the rock root that
grows back behind me, stiffening and becoming the island, its just water on 3 sides.
These diaphanous permanently unlidded windows
with Bataille everything round is either a boob an egg or an eye. All equal erotic charge.
I add in the giant red buoys that hang from the trees, the mooring lines, that bounce up
from the shrimp pots, remembering how as a kid I carried fish eyes around in shells,
like St. whats her name? Agatha, the one who cut out her eyes. Now I stand at a wood
table and filet salmon and think about my own tits that I just cut off; threw away
another writer who I loved wrote from my cabin, long beautiful historical books. In one
of them she describes all the bodies whove drowned, imagining them a mile out to sea
where the water grows a little dark; its the way she sees them: drowned but still waving
their arms from the eel grasses in the soft current reaching up towards the light
I wake up in a sweat and the fires out, the wool blankets twisted. The islands a buzz:
someones been stealing gas in the strangest way, ie forgoing the ubiquitous gas
tanks that decorate everyones property and instead siphoning small amounts from old
tractors, huge gas drums, stealing just for the sake of it, greasy lips walking around in
the dark
in Blindness they lead each other from place to place groping as if making literal that
vision has a path and most of the world falls outside of it and with the fire out I think:
what if all learning is just to get here, to lifes only lesson, the insistent soft thud
and the shimmery thing far off. Whos supposed to see what?
that night on the bluff the light made a hard stop and froze over us, a brilliant wall.
What could it be? But there was nothing it could be, nothing possible at all except the
hammering in our animal chests, the sudden metallic taste that signaled we had gotten
it all wrong, all our cynicism, total bullshit: our certainty about what belonged in this
world and what didnt
meanwhile a tugboat makes a solo trip out under that blackness, pulling its log skirt
behind it, the captain blowing his hands and flashing the beam at each unrolling shadow
trying trying trying not to hit

33

Keynotes. Building nation and bodies.

by Ulrika Gomm.
Gentlemen and Swedish Men! The estate should, if they try to reach justice and
societal peace for their trudge, find a way to ease the heavy labor of the working class. A people can with reliance meet difficult times, if the people have a
strong patriotic spirit of self sacrifice and inter-mutual belonging. The trudge
of the state, to help and protect the weak in the society, can only be successful if it is supported by the peoples obedient and law abiding contribution and
by itself culture in the hardships of these times for stronger inter-mutual
belonging and liberalization from greed and brutish advantage. I will also propose to You suggestions for laws regarding children born out of wedlock and for
adoption. Proposals for political voting rights for Swedens women will also be
presented to You. Gentlemen and Swedish Men! Further You will be presented a
legislative proposal, regarding the abolition of the death penalty. Swedish men
and women, elected representatives for the people of Sweden! Proposition for
interventions regarding the ethics of the people, which are threatened by illegal import of alcohol. Furthermore You will be presented a proposal regarding
maternity benefits for industrial workers. The maintenance of the labor peace is
of enormous importance for the whole society. You will be presented a legislative proposal against blackmailing and regarding sterilization. Propositions to
improve national basic pensions and for living conditions for families with many
children are being planned. You will be proposed a proposition regarding the
introduction of a seven year obligatory elementary school. I am considering
proposals regarding improved maternity care and care of children. It is my anticipation to be able to present to You a proposal regarding general vacation
prescribed by law. The estate must be prepared, if there is a sign of recess, to
be able to intervene in a quicker way than before, to maintain employment and
the purchasing power of the people. Unity and concurrence must not be weakened
by the egoism of individuals and groups. Signs of enervation regarding these
matters have been noticed. They are warning signals and a request for improvement. Proposals regarding improved societal support for mothers and children,
among them vacation for housemothers and free school lunch, will be presented to
the parliament. To complete the social reform program I will present to You a
proposal regarding general child benefits. Further more there will be a legislative proposal regarding freedom of religion. Even though the future in more than
one respect appears uncertain, we however look forward to it with hopeful reliance. Although we will be prepared to meet the danger and difficulties, that
this future might bring about. I will further propose to You reforms regarding
improvements of the mental care. The improvement of the youth reform school will
be prosecuted. Propositions will be presented regarding the productive work
efforts for disabled persons. The state of being prepared to fight down unemployment must maintain, and the labor market policy focus on the most efficient
way to take advantage of the work force. I will propose to You propositions to
continue the development of the mental care and the support for disabled. Propositions will be presented regarding free inoculation against polio for the whole
population up to the age of 50. Furthermore I intend to suggest an improvement
of the medical insurance system, major improvements of the economical support
for childbirth and a tryout for general organized health control. An increased
support for families with children is suggested and a major improvement of the
economical support for youth in school. Essential increased support is suggested
to improve the homes for the elderly. Families with a low income and families
with many children are suggested to get better economical support. This will be
modeled to improve the families living conditions. There will be a request for
resources to rapidly increase the quantity of childcare place numbers. Specific
efforts are proposed to improve the living standards for people in sparsely
populated areas. Increased efforts are suggested to prevent ill health. Proposal
for legislation regarding the implementation for a 40 hour working week will be
presented. By lowering the state taxes and keeping the municipal taxes essentially unmodified, private consumption will increase. Proposal for a general
dental insurance will be presented. Gender equality is improved by a proposition

34

for efforts within employment market- and regional policy, furthermore through
development of social child-care. The United Nations has declared this upcoming
year to be the international year of the woman, with the slogan Equality, Development and Peace. Here at home, in the spirit of the United Nations, work
continues in different areas to create equality between men and women. The right
to get support for children with a single parent is suggested to also include
immigrant children. Higher education must open up for new groups. The efforts of
the immigrants are a major value for the Swedish society. They shall have the
right to have work, accommodation, social security and belonging. The already
concluded reforms regarding an improvement of the pensions and a reduction of
the general age of retirement should be completed with improved possibilities
for an individual adjustment of the retirement age. An extension of the compensation for parents who stay at home in connection with child birth, and to
shorten the working day for parents with small children, are urgent reforms. For
the majority of the salary workers a fifth vacation week is an important standard improvement. Proposals regarding that immigrants shall get a quicker notification regarding residence and working permit are presented. Increased efforts
are planned within drug addiction care. During the upcoming parliament session a
proposal for female succession of the throne will be presented. There will be
major demands for solidarity. Work is being done to model a law regarding equality between women and men in working life. An important step in immigration
policy is to improve the relations between Swedes and immigrants. There is a new
faith in the future. The government will continue to battle bureaucracy and
trouble. Sweden has better conditions than most other countries to confront the
problems of today and secure the welfare of tomorrow. There is a strong tradition of collaboration within society and working life. This collaboration is
made easier if social differences are small. The new program for primary school
will increase the possibilities of preparing pupils for the demands that are
awaiting in working life. More young persons need to find their way to the industrial sector. The market economy requires an efficient competition. The work
for equality continues. That women and men shall have the same opportunities and
the same responsibilities is an obvious starting point for the policy of the
government in different areas. An increasing part of the population of Sweden
are immigrants. Not at least must the situation for immigrant youth and the
second generation immigrants be mentioned. The government will, during the following year, propose a more sufficient proposition in teaching of Swedish for
immigrants. Our time is characterized by changes. These are deeply efecting the
existence of the human being. This can create anxiety, social tensions and mistrust for democratic institutions. We are all responsible to prevent such a
development and that people get back the trust in the future. The burdens must
be carried in solidarity and issues regarding the future must be solved in coalition. The abuse of alcohol and drugs is a severe problem for both the individual and for the whole society. Government is determined to continue the battle against this abuse. It is important to take charge of experiences and
opinions from different groups in society, to be ready for open dialogue, to
respect others point of view. There is a strong connection between the citizens level of knowledge and our countrys possibilities for renewal and development as an industrial and welfare nation. That as many people as possible get
educated in the new technology is an investment both for the individual and for
society. Schools have an important role when it comes to giving the people a
humanistic perspective on technological and economical development. The gap
between poor and rich continues to grow. Our refugee policy is an important
expression of international solidarity transferred to a practical act. Tendencies of racism and discrimination of immigrants will, with power, be opposed.
The labor market policy is not only a way to resist the unemployment of today
and prevent it for tomorrow: it is also needed to adjust resources and demand on
the labor market with each other and consequently increase productivity and
growth in the economy. Womens position within the labor market must improve.
The social conditions for industrial workers must improve. The government has
engaged a special aids delegation. It is important that consumers have access to
good quality food for a reasonable price. It is the children and youth of today

35

that will build the society of the future. The younger generation must therefore
be given good fundamental conditions. According to the governments opinion, the
youths possibilities for an active and meaningful spare time, is of major importance. Safe conditions for families with children must be created. Women and
men shall have an equal position within all fields. The womens labor market
should expand. Artists have an important role in the defense of our open and
democratic society. Many people in our country are worried for what they understand as an increasing, pointless and blind violence in society. Pessimism and
resignation have been turned into optimism and belief in the future. It is important to improve womens conditions and increase the equality for the labor
market and in professional training programs. With specific state support, the
capacity for surgery of hip joints, coronary vessel and eye operations will
increase in order to reduce the waiting queue. Further efforts against AIDS are
planned. House speculation and segregation must be prevented. Sweden shall continue to carry on an ambitious refugee policy. People shall not need to wait
long waiting periods at refugee quarters. The correctional treatment must be run
in a way that escapes are prevented. At the same the stay in prison and noncustodial treatment must ease a rehabilitation after release. Both shortage of
labor and low savings limit growth and inflate prices and costs. Special interventions will therefore be set in place to increase savings and in a better way
utilize the peoples will to work. Disabled peoples possibilities to participate in working life must further be improved. Immigrants possibilities to
attend the labor market must be simplified. The working life must be more safe
and equal. Women and men must be able to combine working life with parental
responsibilities, in an easier way. The battle against HIV and AIDS must continue, as well as the battle against drugs. The attempts to reach equality and a
more even social structure within all educational programs will enhance. For
good reasons we can feel optimism for the future. But there are also good reasons to keep in mind how a prosperous development can switch to the opposite.
Justice and solidarity are deeply rooted values for the Swedish people. People
shall experience meaningfulness and responsibility at their working place. Unequal living conditions are especially obvious in the big cities. The support
for women who have been exposed to or threatened by violence will be followed up
and developed. The effort to increase womens representation within different
decision making structures will continue. All youth under the age of 20 will be
offered a place in upper secondary school. We stand before a broad renewal of
the conditions of working life, with most benefits for those with the toughest
and most dangerous jobs. Employers rehabilitation responsibilities and responsibility for preventing work related injury and ill health are validated. During
this upcoming year the government will suggest that the use of genetic engineering on people shall be regulated. The proposition includes for example a prohibition to develop methods to create genetic effects that can be inherited. The
government will propose a precision of the equality act as well as efforts
against sex discriminatory commercials. Special efforts are planned to strengthen the protection for threatened and endangered women. Sweden is a good country
to live in. In our country democracy is deeply rooted. Here are the people well
educated and the industry is well off. To improve the competitiveness for the
private commercial and industrial life the employment taxes are lowered and the
vacation prescribed by law is being shortened by two days. High employment percentage among women is an important asset for the economy of Sweden. The age of
retirement will gradually increase to the age of 66. The educational program
shall be grounded in the ethical norms that through Christianity and western
humanism are deeply rooted in our country. Schools shall give children and youth
a solid ground also regarding ethical standpoints. Applied research is being
done to look into the possibilities of bodyguards for threatened women. A proposal will be presented regarding more rigid punishment for threat and molestation. Crime victims will get increased support. Immigrant and refugee policies
are being conducted in the spirit of internationalism and humanity. Xenophobia
and racism shall be defeated. Further efforts against discrimination of immigrants are executed. The government is working towards a shared responsibility
for the refugees among European nations. At the same time it is necessary to

36

limit the costs for refugee reception, and limit what Sweden can offer beyond a
refuge. Swedish foreign policy shall be a clear voice for human rights, freedom
and democracy. A dynamic society is faced with new ethical issues. Not least the
latest years data on economical development shows the importance of a moral
attention to social climate. Where the moral is getting weak, the faith for
societys rules and institutions are also loosing strength. Now, demands for a
strong ethical fundamental philosophy in policy needs to strengthen. The governments starting point is the view on humans equal value and the sanctity of
human life, that within Swedens Christian and humanistic traditions are so
firmly established in our country. Every person is unique. Every person has the
right to be respected. The group may never strangle individual freedom, responsibility, creativity and the right to choose. The economic crisis effects all of
us. The economical situation is now slowly being improved. The road back to
persistent growth and full employment is long. Long lasting unemployment destroys peoples life chances and the risk for personal and social problems for
individuals and families are severe. The freedom of choice within welfare policy
must continue. Home and school shall give children and youth a clear idea of
what is right and wrong. A proposal regarding more rigid punishment for crimes
with racial motives is presented. The law enforcement agency is rationalized and
de-bureaucratized. The political decisions that must be made during the upcoming
years will often be difficult and often far from popular. Nevertheless they will
be absolutely necessary. The crisis is not over yet. With the purpose to reduce
pressure on the environment a proposal is compiled addressing how the consumers
can change their way of living and consumption. The school must lay the foundation for lifelong learning. Every child is unique and has unlimited possibilities for development. When a young person leaves school with insufficient knowledge is it not only a catastrophe for the individual, it is also an
irresponsible waste of resources for society. The youths power and ideas must
better be taken care of. Age limit for purchasing tobacco will be instated.
Strengthening womens position is the key to solving major global issues. Increase integration and lower segregation. The responsibility for this lies on
each and every one of us who believe in the core of democracy all human equal
value and sanctity. Violence and crime may never be confronted by passivity.
Culture is a source for increased knowledge and inspiration for the unknown in
times when the wind of change is sweeping over the world. Culture is both an
antenna towards the future and an anchor in history. It is needed to disrupt
traditional gender roles that are grounded in childhood and that later can be
read in womens choice of career and quality of working life. The government
will devote major effort to increase womens power and influence within all
fields in society. Unemployment must be defeated. School shall provide all children with an equal education of good quality. Harassments, racism and violence
must be defeated. The gender segregated labor market must end. The struggle
against womens unemployment must escalate. A successful battle against unemployment depends on peoples belief on safety and reassurance for the future.
This effects not only consumption and investments. It will also be the foundation for social stability and individual creativity. Sweden is one of the
worlds most equal countries. Fear must not spread in society. Nazi and racist
manifestations shall be defeated wherever they show. Interventions will be proposed to prevent the distribution of Nazi opinions. Segregation of all forms
must be defeated. The effort for integration escalates and the struggle against
ethnic discrimination increases. The aspiration for an equal society continues.
Salary inequalities on the basis of gender must disappear. The human is the
goal. The goal is however veiled due to the fact that every tenth person is
unemployed. This is a terrible waste. Society is not benefitting from its frontmost resource. Possession of child pornography is prohibited. Equal pay for
equal work is an obvious goal. Correctional treatment is being changed with the
purpose to better prepare the intern for a law abiding life in freedom. The will
of the people to work is the nations frontmost resource. Proceeded efforts are
being made in underprivileged neighborhoods to improve the living environment,
increase employment and raise the level of education. Every person has the right
to a good financial support for education, unemployment and illness. Every per-

37

son also has the right to employment security, possibilities to influence their
work place and support within a strong labor union. Everyone has the right to a
dignified old age. Disabled people shall have good possibilities for participation in society. Sweden is not equal. Men and women still have different opportunities, in both influence and income. Female business enterprising and reduced
gender segregation of the labor market is strived for. All crime shall be battled with strength, as well as the sources of crime. Women and men shall have
equal rights regardless of ethnic and cultural background. Legislation against
discrimination is needed. Everyone must have a language to be able to express
opinions. Specific efforts will be made for literature, reading and the Swedish
language. If we dont remember the violence on human dignity that took place in
history, then violence and hate can win again. Democracy must be conquered, and
conquered again. Nazism, fascism and racism cannot be tolerated. Gender related
choices in education must stop. The low birth rate may require further family
political efforts. In equality and development people grow. We are well prepared
for the future. Politics must focus on bridging those gaps that still divide
people in our country. Sweden is, and shall continue to be, the most child
friendly country in the world. More vacation days should be phased in. Dental
health shall not be a class mark. Sweden shall be more accessible for people
with disabilities. There shall be more police officers and the police authorities capability to prevent and solve crimes shall increase. Everyone who wants
shall be able to get a job. Resources will be earmarked to support immigrants
and labor handicapped in finding jobs. All forms of discrimination are unacceptable in a decent society. If society shall develop then everyone must be given
the opportunity to share the responsibilities regardless of gender, sexual
orientation, ethnic and cultural background. Sweden shall get strength from
variety. The number of female scientists shall increase. We want to build a
world in democracy and openness, where we are able to love and live together, in
respect and mutual understanding. New parents will get longer and better parental benefits. The effort to prevent homelessness and improve the situation for
the homeless will continue. The support for women who are subjected to violence
and threats will enhance. Gender perspective pervades all parts of the governmental policy, which means to challenge conventional way of thinking, working
forms and norms. This fall the government will present a procedure manual to
support the efforts to accomplish equality within all areas of society. A democratic approach cannot be commanded, it must be practiced already in the class
room. Multicultural projects will get extra support, so will language and culture among our national minorities. Stress must be reduced. Employee influence
over work and working time must increase. All women and men shall have the right
to a job, which it is possible to make a living from. The development towards
more and longer sick leaves must stop. We must make working life more human and
lower sick leaves. Womens health and working conditions are especially observed. The resources of elderly, early retired and people with disabilities
must be better used. With a majority group who is working, possibilities to make
working life better for everyone increase. Structures and methods to value foreign professional competence are developed. The reception of asylum seeking
children is improved. A good geriatric care requires more employees. Poor conditions can never be accepted. Health care shall encompass everyone, being paid
for collectively and distributed to those who need it. Young girls who live
under threat or constraint shall get extra support. The knowledge society of
tomorrow is established in the daycare of today. All schools shall be good
schools. We shall legislate prohibition against discrimination and sexual harassment in school. Knowledge is power. But also culture is power. We all need
to have access to means of expression a rich language to express feelings and
opinions with, maybe the ability to sing, play, paint, dance. The support for
immigrants culture increases. Childrens culture is given extra support. Free
entrance to public museums is introduced. Sweden is far from equal. The day when
people turn their back to democracy, the decay of open humanistic society will
start. Once again we can confirm a declined poll. It is a warning signal to take
seriously, so is also the advancement of parties with undemocratic values. The
national minorities influence shall increase. The gap is growing foremost be-

38

tween regions in Sweden. But they are also growing between citizens with different origins, between those who are established on the labor market and those who
have difficulties to enter, between men and women. They risk the creation of
democratic problems. People who are in need of psychiatric care shall get it.
The number of police officers shall continue to increase. The rule of law shall
be claimed. But in our country there are still dissimilarities within health and
access to education that cannot be explained by anything other than social background. There are dissimilarities within working conditions and participation
that cannot be explained with anything other than ethnic background. There are
dissimilarities within salary and power that cannot be explained with anything
other than gender. A hundred years of struggle against a hierarchy rooted in
class has not extinguished the dissimilarities. Almost every fifth citizen in
Sweden has at least one parent who was not born in our country. In a global
world this is a huge asset. Discrimination must stop. Socially uneven recruitment at universities must be fought. Strong commercial interests are spreading
sexualized images of women and are exposing gender prejudices. That is constraining equal opportunities and must be fought. A national proposal is being
prepared against prostitution and trafficking. More people will need to go from
one job to another. Individual plans of action will be introduced from first
grade. Discrimination and insulting behavior in school will be forbidden. Women
and men shall have the same power to shape their future and their own lives. An
effort will be made to lower poor health at women dominated workplaces. Support
for women organizations will increase. Governmental support for womens aid will
increase. New initiatives will be made against sexual exploitation and trafficking. Our elderly are increasing in numbers. Elderly immigrants needs must also
be considered. The number of police officers will increase. Bugging is being
enabled. The DNA-register expands. The protection for women subjected to violence is being developed. Behind criminality often lie social reasons. The care
of drug addicts is being improved, and preventive efforts in socially deprived
areas will get extra support. More students shall leave school with knowledge
and qualifications to be able in a confident way to function as citizens and in
the working life. Equality in Sweden has improved, but women and men have still
not the same possibilities. Women and men shall have the same possibilities to
develop. The government will oppose and change systems that conserve the distribution of power and resources in a gender perspective. When men and women share
power and influence in all parts of social life, we will get a better society.
Both women and men shall be able to combine family life with working life. Public employers have a responsibility to guarantee women good working conditions
and oppose discriminatory pay differentials. Womans possibilities to start and
run businesses shall improve, and obstacles that interfere womens business
enterprising shall be demolished. Clear conditions to facilitate the increase of
women who dare to and take the step to start their own business shall be given.
Research regarding womens enterprising shall continue. Women shall be able to
live in freedom and without fear of being subjected to violence and crime.
Threatened women shall be protected and endangered womens economic safety shall
be secured. A proposal to reduce violence against women will be elaborated. The
right for asylum shall be protected and developments we see in Europe, towards
more closed borders, shall be prevented. We want to live in an open society that
is characterized by fellowship and diversity, where everyone has the same possibilities. Gaps are growing socially and economically. Immigrants shall be respected as individuals and not seen as a homogenous collective. In addition for
the first time in Sweden, it is not necessary for any special policy regarding
immigrants, but rather a policy that frees peoples internal strength and dispel
the alienation that has gained a foothold here in Sweden. The best road to integration is work and knowledge of language. Vigorous efforts must be made against
ethnic distribution of the Swedish labor market. The family is a foundational
unit in society. In the little group that the family is, family members get the
opportunity to meet love, attention and understanding, but also faced with demands and to take responsibility. Those differences that exist within health
care regarding treatment and attention of men and women must end. Methods of
treatment, medical products, diagnostics and research shall be conformed for

39

both women and men. Generic care must be managed with respect for human dignity.
No one shall have to die alone. Treatment of drug addiction and psychiatric
emergency ward shall not be able to deny diagnoses and treatment to patients.
Patients who can be dangerous for themselves or others shall be moved quickly to involuntary commitment if they dont follow prescribed treatment. To lower
the alcohol consumption is urgent, it often conduce to violence and abuse. Lower
alcohol consumption improves public health and reduces many social problems. The
police shall in a better way prevent, investigate and solve crime and serve the
citizens. Crime victims shall be treated with compassion and professionalism by
all authorities. Parents have the responsibility to communicate norms and values
to their children. A safe childhood is the most efficient crime prevention.
Parents are and shall be liable for damages if they deliberately or by carelessness fail in the custody of the child. Men who abuse women shall get help to end
destructive behavior, with adequate care and treatment. Both youth and the elderly shall be used in advantage of the labor market. To have a meaningful job,
good life quality and participation in society, individual self-determination is
important. We weave threads of safety between people and make it possible for
people to dare to take responsibility and grow with their tasks. Knowledge and
education are tools to give every person the opportunity to realize their
dreams. Every person shall be given the knowledge that is needed to be able to
function as a citizen. Culture develops civic society and keeps the democratic
conversation alive. Equality and equal possibilities are important for both
women and men. In school information regarding crime inspired by totalitarian
ideologies shall be evolved. The power shall proceed from the people, and every
citizen shall have influence over decisions regarding their lives. Behind statistics are people of flesh and blood people who are given the opportunity to
grow in working life, to feel pride in being able to support themselves and
become a part of the community that a job means. The government would like to
clarify the value of work to personal health care and child care, to industrial
workers, office workers and to everyone else who is working. That women and men
shall have the same life chances is obvious. A good school erases class differences. Therefore we have the responsibility to give all children and youth an
education that prepares them for a life as adults. Our idea of the welfare society is based on the knowledge that no one is an isolated island. We are dependent on each other to have our lives worked out. In our country people shall be
able to live side by side regardless of background, religion, skin color or
gender. Here everyone shall be alike before the law. We want more people to be
able to stand on their own feet and experience the joy of supporting themselves
with a job. Many shall experience that they can make an effort and get paid for
their labor. In Sweden live hard working, skilled and deedy people who want to
contribute for the best for the community. They who abandon the working line
will also abandon the struggle against alienation and the gaps that this alienation creates. It has become more lucrative to work. Specific efforts are being
made to encourage womens and immigrants businesses. The penalty for violent
crime will rise. We will reach the goal of 20,000 police officers. This many
police officers Sweden has never had. All people have an absolute and equal
value, at the same time as every person is unique. Everyone shall not live in
the same way, but everyone shall have the same possibilities to develop as independent persons. Our openness towards the surrounding world is illustrated by
the fact that Sweden is a country where Christians, Jews and Muslims, those who
believe in God and those who dont believe in God, can live side by side in
mutual respect. Around Sweden the belief in the future is growing and that tomorrow shall be better and brighter than yesterday. Our future, the unity of our
society and our welfare is dependent on peoples working efforts. The elderly
shall be given the opportunity to remain in the work force. Therefore we will
extend the rights to remain in working life from the age of 67 to 69. Those who
are severally ill and not able to work will get compensation. Major adjustments
will be made so that the individual is not affected by unacceptable and unintended consequences. Peoples working efforts and entrepreneurial spirit, together with openness towards the surrounding world, have made Sweden one of the
wealthiest countries in the world. Our wealth has laid the foundation for the

40

welfare system that gives everyone a chance in life so that everyone can feel
free and secure in everyday life. Women and children are many times more vulnerable. In some parts of Sweden there is a feeling that the rights of the strongest have taken over law and justice. This development is unacceptable. The road
to an equal Sweden will be all about treating every person with respect. In
Sweden equality between women and men has come further than in many other countries. Still there is a lot to do before women and men have the same possibilities. The work for equal opportunities in school, the efforts for violated women
and improved protection for women with secret identity, as well as the struggle
against prostitution, are some important elements. In Sweden generations of
people, who escaped oppression and poverty, have been given a chance to start a
new life. They have enriched our country, made us wiser and given us a more
developed society. They are contributing to our wealth. At the same time there
are major shortages in the system for the establishment of immigrants in Sweden.
As it is true that we in Sweden have these shortages, as true is that that a
poor working system and structures have created problems not the people who
have come here. Swedish citizenship means both rights and obligations. Society
is larger than the state. An open and tolerant society is built on clear values,
where we separate right from wrong, show tolerance for differences and give
space for people to grow. The struggle for increased equality is one of our
times most important democratic challenges. Our point of departure is that all
people are different but have the same human value. We believe in Sweden and we
believe in the human. Therefore we also believe in the future. A society that
holds together and lets people grow will become a viable society, a better, more
free and humane society. The future belongs to those who dare to believe in
their dreams. All children have that spark in them, the only thing needed is to
light it. All people are different. At the same time everyone has the internal
capacity to grow. The future is a country without a map. That country will be
built in the best way if we all can be part of it and if everyone is given the
chance to contribute. The working line shall improve. More women and men shall
see entrepreneurial activities as an obvious choice. The future of Sweden is
built out of work. The future is shaped by our visions of tomorrow and the decisions we make now. The government will therefore establish a future commission.
Our surrounding world is changing. Our map is transforming. It shall be easy and
profitable to run a business in Sweden. We must create a smoother transition
from school to working life. We require that recent arrivals shall take job
offers. Those attitudes racism, intolerance, discrimination that prevent
immigrants to reach their full potential, shall be prevented with strength. When
many work and fewer are supported by social security, the income gaps in society
are reduced. People who stay in the country without permission will be given
extended access to medical care. There shall be an available and visible police
force in the whole country. Efforts with young people who commit crime shall be
early and clear. Addiction and other risk factors shall be prevented. A unified
society is also an equal society. A society where women, sisters, daughters and
mothers have the same power to shape the society and their lives as men, brothers, sons and fathers. For that society we unfortunately have some ways to go.
The most equal country in the world is still too unequal. Women are discriminated, exposed to violence, have lower salary, do more unpaid homework and have
less career opportunities. In a worried world we in Sweden have faith for the
future. Together we shall make a good Sweden better.

1 What ideas, visions, rethorics, actions and decisions made over time, have formed our institutions in
this country and are inherited within our bodies, socially and physically? To get a better understanding I went to the archive of Riksdagsbiblioteket (the library of the parliament) in Stockholm, Sweden,
to read the inaugural speech for every year, going back 100 years. First it was the king doing this
speech and later on the prime minister, they have all been men. This text is compiled of fragments from
that enormous material and freely translated from Swedish to English by me, the author.

41

One visionary said to the other: Our time baby, let's go!
Johanna Gustavsson

I was Lolita Lebrn.

Is the fact that I'm a woman important? Yes. I'm not making any
assumptions as to what shapes the revolution, as such, will take.
I dress up to die. I leave my children behind and at least one of
them dies. Instead I take the revolution to my heart and live with
it as if it was my own. My daughter took her life, I have to live
with that. I tried to take the Americans lives because they took
my mothers life and my brothers lives and above all, my sisters
lives and my country that never was mine, or, so they say. I am
Lolita, I fight for an independent Puerto Rico. I'm a nationalist,
had I lived today I would have fought for socialism and our total
freedom, like Cuba. Had I been a man I would have been Che and
Fidel. Not their mother or daughter or wife or cook, I would have
been more then them together. I would have been the collected
energy from their oversexualized love affair. I am a woman, I
don't take any pills yet I never get pregnant. I begin and end
with me. I begin and end with Puerto Rico, an independent country.
1950. The Korean War begins. Puertorican men are drafted to fight
and die for the US. Lolita Lebrn works as a seamstress in New
York where she makes emblems for the soldiers uniforms, to this
and following wars. This is how capitalism and colonialism works.
This is how we are positioned against each other, woven into a
net, seemingly impossible to escape. These experiences start
revolutions.

Julia de Burgos, where are you from? And she answers: From
nowhere, just like you.
She was a poet, she was married many times, she ended up an
alcoholic. She said: The desire to follow men made me crooked
inside. She was a feminist before the term existed.
July 6, 1953. 39 years old she was found in the gutter in Spanish
Harlem. An unidentified body that no one claimed. She was buried
anonymously in a cemetery in the Bronx, a place for those who
can't afford. Later they understood that the unidentified body was
Julia de Burgos and she was taken to Puerto Rico where she was
buried as a heroine in September, that same year.
March 1, 1954. I dressed up, I assumed I would die this day. We
took the train to Washington. We walked from the train. When we
arrived they asked us if it was cameras that we had brought in our
bags. It wasn't. We walked inside. I screamed: Viva Puerto Rico
Libre! and I opened fire into a room with 240 congress men.
It's important for me to define the moment when activism ends and
revolution begins, because in many ways, this is what my life has
been about. That is exactly how I have lived.
On the train to Washington I think and I calculate. I get off the
train and walk towards the building. Is that a camera? they ask.

42

No, I answer, and enter. I take to the left and walk up the
stairs, out on the ladies' gallery and step out to the edge.
I stop thinking here.
I pick up my weapon and shoot, I scream the words on my tongue. I
scream the words I put on my tongue before I ceased thinking and
gave myself to this revolutionary moment.
Ask me if I believe in violence. No, not really. I turn to the
youth and tell them to be without fear of the enemy but show great
tenderness towards each other. In my revolutionary moment I was
young and without emotions. I was among others, but alone. I
didn't feel because I didn't want to know and also, no one asked,
it was not important at the time. We didn't have the strength to
feel, it would have overpowered us.
I didn't go to Washington to kill anyone, I came to die for my
country. No, it wasn't a death wish but I had run out, they had
worned me down, I was broken. They had finished me. I carried hate
around like a physical object. I carried so much hate for so long,
that it made me sick. That day I dressed up as an American, I
dressed up as a woman to be desired, it was my biggest humiliation
and that's why I hoped to die that day. I didn't. I was sentenced
to 57 years and was imprisoned 25.
I have versions of visions. I place versions of visions of
collectivity and communality, collectives, conflicts, on top of
each other to fit my cell. Community, safe space, a conflict
perspective, give ourselves to each other, gang mentality, trust,
trusting. In my mind I walk together with others in a circle on a
square. We speak about politics, it's not cohesive but we do it
anyway, it doesn't change much but we do it anyway. We are in
public space, we don't consume, we are among others. We reoccur in
the commons. The collective, our version of vision. The common is
my common fanatic fantasy. I struggle to make the world
understandable in a time and place where thinking is perceived as
pure madness, a flow of foolishness.
When I'm alone in that confined space it becomes necessary for me
to define myself, by myself. I start to think that I'm a walking
razor blade, a directed smoke curtain or another solitary figure,
completely the contrary to my socialist believes. But then I meet
you and we walk squares together. I'm reminded that Im a gang
member whose life is community. And I think a lot about us, WE,
yes I'm allowing myself a we here. I'm thinking I should construct
a wall around us to build a solid we, it's a prolongation of my
gang mentality, and my physical state of being in this moment. But
then I'm thinking I should define our actions instead of us, the
thought of that sets me free. When I speak of we, I mean us, I
mean all those political homes that we have. I travel between
them, it's difficult for me to allow myself the trust it implies
to stay in one place. Maybe I'm too obsessed with trying to
establish even the simplest connection between body, word and
faith. To connect the politics of language and the physicality in
politics.
With my own blood I write a letter to you on a napkin:

43

I demand the respect of you that you are here when you have
promised to be.
That you explain to me why you brake an agreement instead of
letting us choose our own, individual, comfortable truths as if we
had no obligations towards each other.
I want you to mean what you say, and that you say things
sometimes without thinking, and that you take the right to change
your mind even before the words come out of your mouth.
I want us to look each other in the eyes when we set the world
on fire. That you are there, on time, with the matches that you
said you would bring, and a lighter, just in case, because it's
now or never.
I want it to be as important to you as it is to me.
I want you to tell me to shut up when I cross the line.
I want you to ask me for an explanation when I say something
you don't understand, because you are interested in what I
have to say.
I want you to be here when you are here, and that nothing else
is more important then.
I want our common acts to be uncompromising and our presence
to be permanent. Because we are the organic intellectuals in
times of capitalism.
I know that what I describe can be called privileges and that is
exactly what I want you to give to me, as I will give you mine.
This will change the world. That's a promise.

2010. Lolita dies and her body is driven to the funeral. The car
drives against traffic, in the wrong lane, in the opposite
direction. This is her bodies last act of resistance.
I am Johanna Gustavsson.
Is the fact that I'm a woman, white, and working class important?
Yes.
I would like to start by saying you are very important to me.
Much has happened since we first met. Many people have passed
through but we have struggled to be in each others life's an it's
not always been easy. When I'm with you I never know what to
expect, that attracts me to you. You challenge me, you talk back.
When others move away from me, you remain.
I feel deep gratitude toward you for staying in my life, for I
have lost many the last years. I know you are dead but you still
speak to me, and live with me. That gives me hope and makes me
less afraid of loosing others and myself. It's like a higher power
blessed us with each others presence. I need to surround myself
with women who dare. Who have visions. Who have faith. Who insist.
Women that are not interested in pleasing but often feel forced
to. Women who are different in a way that others ascribe us mental

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illness. Women who don't know how to navigate through our every
day, through the hegemonies of our times. Who are fucked up and
have flaws that leaves us lonely at times, great and imortal at
times, forceful and fearless at times, imprisoned at times and in
violent relationships at times.
I don't want to romanticize about the difficulties in our life's,
but I want to ascribe them meaning.
Julia, you drank and I smoked. Men abused us and we understood
them. We fall flat on our faces, I'm picked up by the police and
put in a cell, you end up in a box and are buried in the Bronx. We
fly, we are fly as fuck until we wake up, bruised and battered. We
want to do right and be constructive and able, but we are unable
and destructive, we are shit or whatever's lying under shit. We
abuse to forget and we avoid getting pregnant. We sleep with the
enemy and learn nothing from the experience. We write poetry and
late nights we drive up to Loiza and Balcone de Zumbador and order
another drink. We fall asleep in the sand behind the bar on the
beaches where the slaves were held, your ancestors. When I wake up
mosquitoes have completely destroyed me, a rare white seal-like
body laid out on the sand for them to feast on. You laugh. My body
has been attacked! I say. Maybe rightfully so, in a place like
this, you say.
We are almost 40, and you will die before we get there.
Lolita, I'm with you through your prison years. I transcend space
and time and madness and bullshit to be with you. I rap for you, a
fat nasty rhyme and we laugh because I suck and then we talk about
sex which you don't really miss but Albizo you miss and you talk
about him and cry with your forehead resting in my hard flat
chest. Later, when we're sitting next to each other on your narrow
bed, you turn to me and say:
Revolution is a precious moment. The moment passes and you are
history. To be in a revolution is to temporarily give up vision,
or rather, to give yourself to them completely. And even if my
actions has turned into historical facts, my body still carries
with it these moments, as one of many scares. As visions in a
visionaries body.
At your funeral I sat down and had a coke with Leila Khaled. She
said: and then they arranged a guerrilla training in the desert,
so we went there. I thought, if someone rolled through right now
and said that, I would go.

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I dream about a bright light on the horizon

Pia Sandstrm

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hi!
this is an invitation to participate in
DISRUPTIVE LAUGHTER.
disruptive laughter is a publication of 5 issues. each issue will be available both online, as a pdf
for downloading, and in a small edition printed version. there will be some sort of release event in
the end when all the issues are done. so each issue will be more like chapters in the whole, and the
release is an event of gathering those five chapters.
to loose a little bit of the hierarchical curatorial role my idea is to invite three women to participate in disruptive laughter, and those three women will invite two women each to the project.
all together we will be ten voices. this is also a way to hear and listen to voices that you have
not met before. for every issue it will be the same ten women dealing with those different voices
given for each issue. so over time and for each new issue we listen and speak and in the end there
will be a multitude of voices heard.
disruptive laughter:
#1 THE VISIONARY
#2 THE MOTHER
#3 THE DYKE
#4 THE POET
#5 THE WARRIOR
my idea is that the project will be going on for about a year, with start sometime during late summer 2013. every second or third month there will be a new issue published. the idea to give you the
titles for every issue from the beginning, is so each and everyone of the participants can dispose
their individual ideas and contributions to fit their own creative process. and for every issue all
these 10 voices will meet, a multitude of identities, thoughts, lived experiences, dreams, standpoints, complexities and voices.
each participant will have about 5 pages for each issue (more or less if needed). the format will be
A4, standing, b/w. the material can be images; photos, stills, drawings and/or text; essays, concrete poetry, articles, speeches and so on.. the layout will be very simple. all the body text will
have the same font, if there is not a specific layout idea for a specific text.
it is important, if you decide to be part of this project, that you will be part of it through all
the five issues. this project is formulated with inspiration from Audre Lordes life and work.
looking forward to hear from you! please dont hesitate to contact me if there is any questions or
thoughts!
all the best
/Ulrika Gomm
April 3 2013

DISRUPTIVE LAUGHTER
is supported by Lngmanska kulturfonden.
Font
PT MONO
was released in 2011 with an open user license. It was designed by Alexandra Korolkova, with participation of Isabella Chaeva, with
the purpose to support almost all minority and official languages of Russian Federation in the correspondence with electronic governments.
For this issue FG ERIN by Ellinor Maria Rapp has also been used.