Program
Please note that the address for the exhibition is the Borgholm Boat Club jetty (c/o UNDANTAGET). Opening hours: 27 August, 4 pm – 7 pm, and 29 August, 12 noon – 5 pm. Other times by arrangement. Contact: Johanna Karlin 0730411397
WANDA
Moored in Borgholm harbour is an Albin Nova dating from 1985. This sailing boat forms the starting point for Wanda, a project within the Småland Triennial 2026. The exhibition begins with a geographical journey across Öland, from a former smallholding on the island’s eastern side to the harbour in the west. As the east coast lacks natural harbours, the boat becomes a place where these two landscapes can meet. The boat carries several stories at once. On the eastern side of the island, remnants of flounder nets and a simple wooden boat bear witness to small-scale subsistence fishing, where the sea was essential for livelihood when the land could not provide enough. Albin Novan belongs to a different boating culture. During the 1970s and 80s, the sailing boat became a symbol of the ‘people’s home’ era’s growing leisure time and optimism about the future. The breakthrough of plastic in boatbuilding made it possible to build boats on a larger scale and at a lower cost. A culture characterised by voluntary work and a sense of community developed around sailing clubs and associations. Albin Novan was built as a cosy miniature home, a sheltered space designed for leaving the shore. The boat combines a longing for security with the dream of venturing out into the unknown.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
On the table in the cabin, a metal sculpture by Emelie Carlén sways back and forth in time with the boat’s rocking. On the wall, two metal chains, each with a half-heart at either end, spin round and round in an endless loop. In the bow cabin, a metal sculpture sprawls across the mattress like an anchor.
In the boat’s cupboards and storage spaces, we find Carl-Oskar Jonsson’s drawings. They only become visible when the visitor opens sliding hatches and drawers. The drawings serve as hidden clues in an ongoing investigation, where suspicions and subtle shifts cause the everyday to begin to appear significant.
Johanna Karlin’s object is placed on the boat’s navigation table, a space whose original function has largely disappeared with the advent of digital navigation. The work straddles the boundaries between furniture, implement and sculpture. Through the contrast between varnished and untreated surfaces, attention is drawn to the materiality of the plywood and the traces left behind by its processing and use. The limited space in the cabin makes the visitor an active part of the exhibition. To engage with the works, the body must adapt to the boat’s narrow passageways, nooks and crannies. You bend down, sit down, open hatches and move carefully between berths and tables. Only some of the works can be reached from your seat, meaning that no single vantage point provides access to the entire exhibition. How lucky we are not to be out at sea …
Ultimately, Wanda is about how places hold memories. Within the confined space of the little sailing boat, different stories converge – stories of work and leisure, of land and sea, of hope for the future and loss. At the same time, there is a sense that something has happened, or is about to be revealed. As in a summer crime novel, everyday details become potential clues and the boat a place where different stories slowly begin to take shape. As if the boat had once left the harbour in the 1980s, only to return now to a different era.
