Residency artist – Elodie Glerum

I år har vi i olika perioder haft fullt i vårt konstnärsresidens med konstnärer från olika delar av Sverige och hela världen. Under några magiska sommarveckor vistades författare, fotografer och målerikonstnärer i våra hus och skapade fina band sinsemellan. En av dem var Elodie Glerum från Schweiz och Nederländerna.

Här kan du läsa om Elodie och hennes arbete:

I am a Swiss-Dutch writer, translator and librettist. So far, I have published one novella, a collection of short stories and two novels. All in French.

In my most recent work, not yet published, I combine ghost stories, oral tales and historical facts to discuss climate change in a small Shetland community. I explore the radical socioeconomic changes, in the 19th century, when landowners replaced an economy based on traditional crofting by more profitable sheep farming. As a consequence, many tenants were kicked out. I relate this trauma to similar industrial uncertainties we are facing now.

At Nordingrå Konstby, I was planning to focus strictly on this manuscript, incorporating feedbacks provided by a writer who had read a first version. I ended up working simultaneously on the proofs of another book, which was published in December 2024. One night, I had to meet a short deadline. The midnight sun helped. It is easier to work with the light, the body feels less exhausted.

Nature on the Höga Kusten is inspiring. When I was there, blooming was at its peak. I enjoyed the late walks on tracks, while tiny frogs were jumping everywhere. The lakes change colour all the time. As a writer, I find it important to process a landscape synesthetically. Scents, views, sounds, temperature and spatial awareness help fix memories, which I can use later. It was also enthralling to be in a region where a witch hunt of such magnitude took place. I could relate the event to my literary interest in violence and collective psychosis.

Staying in Nordingrå Konstby was bliss. The café is a haven, the staff is so kind, the pies are delicious and the atmosphere of the old school is quite unique. I often peeped into the workshop upstairs to see the ongoing work of visual artists Sanneke Griepink, Cecilia D’Alessandro and Beata Szparagowska. I also enjoyed long kitchen talks with writer and double bass player Ulla Ryman. Our walk to Mädan’s tiny musea is a vivid memory.

It is a cliché and nonetheless true. A writer is often confined to solitude, which can be a little depressing. Being in a workshop enhances creativity. Writing is primordially a manual work, I tend to forget it (although I write my texts in longhand, in notebooks). Nordingrå Konstby is the keeper of old printing presses still in use. I see this as a symbolical statement stressing that arts cannot be fully automatised.

Thank you Annikka Kronlid Arvidsson, Mikael Arvidsson, Sandra Chinery-Hesse, Sara Taub Mkelle and the café team for your kindness.

Cover photo by Beata Szparagowska

 

Här kan du följa Elodie och hennes arbete:

Facebook: Elodie Glerum

Instagram: elo_glerum

Leenaards foundation video portrait: https://vimeo.com/743994698