Current exhibitions

Happy Nation
Anna-Karin Rasmusson, Kristina Abelli Elander, Yasaman Gheidi, Mare Kandre and Razvan Anghelache.
15 June – 9 September 2018

Free entrance

About the exhibition

Psyche is a genus of butterfly that make part of the bagworm moths, Psychidae family. The word comes from the Greek word psῡchê, life, which later came to mean soul. Psyche is also the name of a female character in Roman and Greek mythology who personified humankind in general. This allows us to connect the psyche to life as a whole. It simply becomes an essential part of being human. Strong and fluttering, flying and peeling, wintering trough stages from pupa to flight.

Thinking of my grandmother, who was born and raised in Dädesjö outside of Växjö and diagnosed with bipolar disease at the age of 85. My grandmother has lived through times where people whispered behind ones back for being a crazy, hysterical woman and where meaning looks were exchanged whenever SSS (St Sigfrids mental hospital) was mentioned in conversations. She has danced, fixed, raised children and made festive meals throughout the golden age of the housewives. She has collapsed, been dismissed and dehumanised, all because of her illness. And in the autumn of her life she now receives medicine for that same illness. She is now part of a new age when mental health has been given many nuances, faces and channels.

Nevertheless, we are many who still work hard to have the strength to make family life, our jobs, social life, engagements and work. With this exhibition, Happy Nation, we try to approach the loaded subject of mental health. Personal experiences, social trends and stigmas are in this exhibition being interpreted in different artistical outlets and methods by five contemporaries; three artists, one writer and an Instagram influencer.

I myself have thought about the great paradox of today’s time; why do we feel so bad when we have it so good? I have read blogs, listened to podcasts, read through fiction, wandered around in the woods and tried to feel for it. But the question cannot be answered and unfortunately you will not find any cure here at all. But please contribute to our collective fanzine the “psych confessional”, so that we may raise our nuanced voices together and reduce the stigmatization of mental health. The confessional texts will be published in exclusive examples once the exhibition has closed.

Filippa de Vos, Manager of Växjö konsthall