Galleri CC, Malmö, 2016

in collaboration with Cecilia Josefson

In this exhibition, Bach’s fugue in G# minor acts as a framework for an investigation in to psychiatric care. The fugue is built on strict rules: each voice plays a part in the harmony of the whole, while maintaining their own melody and individual integrity. Josefson and Robins use this framework to explore the frictions between different voices echoing around the stark landscape of Finnmark, Northern Norway – a meeting point between the Sami population, Western colonisers and their respective approaches to health care.

In this exhibition they make full use of Galleri CC’s space with three connected installations. In a starkly tiled room, seven wash hand basins drip water, adding percussive elements to Josefson’s extended soundscape. A film downstairs takes us on a journey through the inside of a mute piano and hospital corridors to the desolate winter of Finnmark. Claustrophobia and an inability to be heard prevail throughout.

“Västerlig psykiatri har tagit patent på sanningen. Det är vårt tids kolonisering. Men man koloniserar inte land utan själar.”  Jens Ivar Nergård

“Western psychology has taken out a patent on the truth. It is our time’s colonisation. It is not only the land that is colonised, but also souls.”

Jens Ivar Nergård