We Become the Ancient Drifter

We become the ancient drifter
Fibres without roots – fibre temples
Fermenterad blå intelligens, marina allianser
Each breath a memory

Blue before maps, after borders
Uncertainty dissolves, and reforms
Sound of Viskan and Kattegatt

We become the Ancient Drifter, A circular film from the sea, created through my free dives with fermented indigo textiles, accompanied by hydrophone recordings from the Viskan River and the Kattegat Sea. The work is projected onto the floor, above the flow of the Viskan beneath the museum.

The film is part of From Viskan to the Kattegat, where several works enter into dialogue: dyed textiles, poetic texts, and recorded voices as archival performance. 

New works on red and blue converse with the historical and the colonial, such as the cotton bale and indigo – How much did a blue body weigh?,  alongside fragments and narratives of women, blood, rituals, and colour.

My practice is rooted in deep archival research where the museum’s collections and the genealogy of the site are examined and reactivated in dialogue with the colonial layers of colour, where pigment and fibre act as power, time, collective memory, and relation, and entangled with the sea’s long-living organisms.

I work with colour as living intelligence: fermenting indigo, free-diving into the sea, and delving into the hidden rooms of the archive and women’s labour. Here, biological and colonial systems of colour meet from textile pigments to food dyes; the paprika in the exhibition carries the same red trace. Whose red was archived? How will we see colour in the future?

I am a guest artist in the ongoing exhibition Reboot Fashion at the Textile Museum in Borås. Some of my earlier works are already part of the permanent collection, including The Goddess of Water and Ice — asking, “How much do we need to dye?” — and the film Everything Has Its Secret: The Sacred Room of Blue.

Born in Borås, where my grandmothers once walked along the Viskan — as estate workers, migrants, and textile labourers — I now return as Viskan’s Daughter.

At the opening, a table was laid with vegetables and fruits in all colours, on a white linen cloth, inviting visitors to taste, play, and experience colour — and to reflect on what truly leaves the stain.

© Jeanette Schäring / ViskansDotter

Part of GIBCA Extended

The exhibition is part of the public program GIBCA Extended 2025, presented in collaboration between the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) and a wide range of local and regional art platforms across Västra Götaland.

The 13th edition of the Göteborg Biennial (20 September – 30 November 2025) takes place at Röda Sten Konsthall and is curated by Christina Lehnert under the title a hand that is all our hands combined.

The biennial highlights acts of solidarity and collaborative networks within art – themes that also resonate through this exhibition.

more info: https://textilmuseet.se/utstallningar/utstallningar/2025-03-21-reboot-fashion-gast