Leif Holmstrand

I am writing a novel, my fourth, dealing with secular magic, queer and partially psychotic shamanistic rituals/games/objects and prostitution, also about deleted friendship narratives, loss, and alternative family structures. The most important theme of the novel is weird joy, joy in the field of possibilities that being broken might provide. I have no intention of completing this novel during the residency, but I want key scenes to achieve structure and shape. What I really want to complete during the residency is a series of art objects (sculptures, images, props for rituals), text sound compositions, short films/video pieces, et cetera, all feeding upon the material provided by my growing novel and research.

The themes in my working during this residency are rituals, ceremonies, happenings, secular magic, totemistic objects and images, non-straight experiences of prostitution, of psychosis, of selling sex and queer friendship and queer love.

I expect from my residency period to get input, new angles and perspectives, solutions for art object production and exchange of experience.

My working methods are diverse: often my writing starts outside language with physical work in the studio – thinking with the hands. The opposite is, though, also plausible: many of my art pieces or happenings start as written text.

Leif Holmstrand (SE) was educated at Malmö Art Academy from 1997 to 2002, and then joined the school’s Post-graduate programme in Critical Studies in 2002–03. Holmstrand is a non-straight writer, musician, and artist whose work has been shown in Vladivostok, Seoul, Tokyo, etc. His approach is ritualistic and expansive, rooted in harsh bodily experiences and a psychedelic view of materials and techniques.