This installation consists of two video projections on the shorter sides of an enclosed, green space. The projections show a girl in an idyllic landscape playing with her Barbie and Ken dolls. The first projection gives a full view of the girl, in a red dress with a silver headband in her golden tresses, while the second projection is a close-up of her face. The space for the viewer has been adapted to the surroundings of the girl. The walls are green, as though light is shining through a roof of leaves. The floor is littered with chips of wood and earth, which give off a penetrating fragrance. There is a tree-trunk in the middle of the space for the visitors to sit on. Upon closer examination the girl's seemingly innocent game turns out to be developing rather strangely. She sings from the Aqua hit: "Come on Barbie, let's go party, oh-o-o-yeah, come on Barbie, let's go party, oeh-oho-oeh-oho", and she has the dolls dance together. The dancing very quickly changes into fighting, and the girl undresses the dolls and works them over with a red and a black felt-tip. A look of sadistic satisfaction radiates from the child's face as she brings out a pair of sharp scissors to scalp Ken with. Her heavy breathing, heard clearly throughout the space, brings to mind the psychopathic killer in the film 'Halloween'. She buries the dolls alive in the end and sprinkles their grave with rose water. Mattsson based the installation on her own childhood experiences. Children often create hideaways for themselves from which adults are forbidden entrance. Their own private space where they can do things they are actually not allowed to do or do things they do not want others to know they are doing. This girl's hideaway, between high trees and thick shrubs, is very similar to the one Mattsson herself had as a child. She wants to invite, not force, the visitors into sharing her experience. Unlike her performances, where she takes a more forceful attitude towards the public, this installation has an open, contemplative character. The installation could be seen at the Center for Contemporary Art in Malmø in the autumn of 1998, where Lena Mattsson won the Edstrand Foundation Prize for it. In the past Mattsson has mainly given performances and exhibited her other work in Sweden, but she is now breaking through to the international scene with exhibitions this year in, among others, Scotland, Denmark and Malaysia.
– Nathalie Zonnenberg
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Lena Mattsson ° 1966, Kungshamm (Sweden)
Lives and works in Malmö (Sweden)
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