In 2013, jag var omöjlig (I was impossible), a documentary on Swedish National Television about Siri Derkert’s life and work, shows three nearly consecutive shots: One of Derkert on a ladder in wool skirts and a welding helmet, cutting figures into the walls; one of a staunchly disapproving interviewer catching an earful from her, shaking a finger at him; and one of her dancing on the platform of her new work, linking arms with inauguration attendees to the spontaneous accordion of a street busker.x In 2015, I participated in a protest where we tore down the massive advertisements Sverige Demokraterna, a hard right, anti-immigration party that has risen to power in Sweden, had put up throughout the station denouncing the presence of foreigners in the country. Looking to the choirs, children, birds and stanzas, with names and quotes from people who worked for peace, feminism and the environment, I was given solace by the traces of other Stockholms, real at other times, fiercely imagined that day. Derkert’s stone music for radical women, poets and the ideals of that former place and time stand as a silent chant in solid rock, its contrast between the radical and the subtle, in both content and material, more perseverant in the cityscape than even the activism or arts movements it depicts. I was thinking of this work, as well as the statue of Sweden’s first social democratic prime minister, Hjalmar Branting at Norra bantorget, when I included the sound of protests in some of the works of this project. In the moment, these protests are powerful, and sometimes overpowering, events. In retrospect they, too, become a part of the greater cityscape, fading back into subtle, but still quietly powerful, features like Derkert’s work in the station. Östermalmstorg is a well-heeled area. But if you can hear the walls sing, the city becomes multi-layered again.

 

Östermalmstorg

The opening to Vädersolsmodernitet (The Sun-Dogs of Modernity) features many sorts of protests. One of them is one I am present at: ripping down the Sweden Democrat advertisements in the Ösermalmstorg subway station.