Anna-Karin på rygg (Anna-Karin on her back), from Kvinnorna vid Tjursjön (The Girls at Bull’s Pond)

Anna-Karin på rygg (Anna-Karin on her back) comes from Tuija Lindström’s most celebrated work, the iconic series Kvinnorna vid Tjursjön (The Girls at Bull’s Pond), executed between 1991 and 1992.

Anna-Karin på rygg (Anna-Karin on her back) perfectly illustrates the grandeur of Tuija Lindström’s artistry, which largely revolved around two dominant poles, or themes: the human body and the landscape. In this specific case, the body is represented by the model Anna-Karin and the landscape by Tjursjön (Bull’s Pond), a pond near Sandemar, Södermanland, slightly southeast of Stockholm. Lindström had probably discovered the pond in 1991, in connection with her Sandemar project, when she photographed gravel pits in the area.

Kvinnorna vid Tjursjön (The Girls at Bull’s Pond) consists of eight photographs of floating women in different positions and an equal number of photographs depicting domestic irons, about half of which are red (one of them in the collections of the Firestorm Foundation). The juxtaposition of naked women and, seemingly, red-hot or blood-soaked domestic irons has confounded the viewers ever since this remarkable work of art was first exhibited in the early 1990s.

In the condensed images of the nude models, the naked white female bodies rest quietly in the black water. Crouched, stretched out, upside down. The spruce trees are reflected in the shiny surface of Bull’s Pond. But what do they represent? Are they protective or threatening? Could it be that, despite the idyllic setting of these sensual images, Lindström speaks of the ever-present fear, or threat, that most people, not least women, occasionally have to face in everyday life? And what about the domestic irons?

Lindström once described how she, to avoid any misinterpretations about women and nature, decided to find something that would serve as a ‘conversation partner’ for the images from the pond. She first had the idea of photographing some kind of imprint, a tangible trace of women and their domestic work. She decided to paint red dye on irons and use them as stamps on fabric. The imprint gave a sacred shape – like a gate, a church – which she liked. But the result was still not quite what she had imagined. So she chose instead to photograph the irons as objects, and the colour on the underside became an added bonus.

Kvinnorna vid Tjursjön (The Girls at Bull’s Pond) has been interpreted in many different ways. Some viewers have been fascinated by the dreamlike quality, not least because of the collision between the two different types of motifs, while others have associated it with the situation of women in society and domestic violence. For some, the series is about the search for identity, a challenging of norms and questioning of gender roles. When Anna-Karin på rygg (Anna-Karin on her back) was exhibited in Tuija Lindström’s celebrated solo exhibition Look at Us at Liljevalchs konsthall (Liljevalch’s Public Art Gallery) in Stockholm in 2004, the curator of the exhibition, Niclas Östlind, wrote the following in the exhibition catalogue:

In Kvinnorna vid Tjursjön (The Girls at Bulls Pond) (1991-1992) white bodies float in dark water. Their corporeality is prominent in spite of the fact that they seem to be in a state of weightlessness. The women -one to each picture- have assumed different poses and there is something ritually archaic about their actions: one is lying with her arms stretched out as though crucified, another has her hands behind her back as though they were tied there, a third has assumed a foetal posture and a fourth is kneeling with her head pointing downwards beneath the surface of the water. An undercurrent of both voluptuousness and morality seeks its way up to the surface of this calm forest pond. Taken together, the variations in position taken up by the women constitute a testing of different ways of being; in the deepest sense it can be seen as a search for identity. It is probably the women’s integrity which ensures that-despite their nakedness-they cannot be objectified in a simple way.

The only thing that is certain is that few who have seen the photographs have been left unmoved. After three decades, these images are as immediate, as sensual, as disturbing and as ambiguous as when they were created. Few could combine beauty with decay, sensuality with aggression, as Lindström did. Her images are always open to the viewer’s own interpretation – what are we actually seeing? The pictures of the floating women are characterised by softness and stillness. The dark water is calm and safe, but their light, naked bodies convey a sense of vulnerability. They remind us of the fragility of life.

Verso signed and dated 1992, as well as numbered AP.

Edition 5 + 2 AP (probably only 3 produced).

Vintage, original frame.

Exhibited

Liljevalchs Konsthall (Liljevalchs Public Art Gallery), Stockholm, Look at us, 5 June – 22 August 2004.

Bohusläns Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden, Art Attack – 52 samtida konstnärer, 15 june – 31 December 2020.

Literature

Niclas Östlind, ‘Fotografi som samtida konst’, article in (Ed.) Anna Näslund Dahlgren, Fotografihistorier. Fotografi och bildbruk i Sverige från 1839 till idag, 2022, illustrated full page, p. 336.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation