MADDE EDLUND

Theater
FÖRSPELET (THE FOREPLAY)
”Do you remember your lovers and how they touched you?”
”IF I remember…”

The Foreplay is part of HÖG production’s scenic exploration of lesbian desire and a continued investigation into how female sexuality can be portrayed on stage in new and broader ways. Built on intimate conversations between lesbian women, conversations that took place in bars, at kitchen tables, on sofas, and in cigarette smoke under the kitchen fan at an after-party. These are stories about body and desire, about horniness, flushed cheeks and hazy eyes, about giggles and embarrassment, about a lust that stings and a longing that never quite lets go. About being a fucked generation stuck in dreary Tinder chats and rigid dealbreakers. And about dreaming bigger than paid Tinder.
A collaboration between HÖG production, Strindberg’s Intimate Theatre and Kulturhuset Stadsteatern Fri Scen.

Text & Direction: Hanna Nygårds | On stage: Lotti Törnros, Parwin Hoseinia and Hanna Nygårds | Sound and Video Design: Madde Edlund | Costume: Alexander Wernersson | Set Designer: Kajsa Bolve Håkansson | Poster girl: Oliver Andersson | Logo: Eva Betjes | Sound effects: Petter Lindhagen | Sculpture installation: Kajsa Bolve Håkansson and Petter Lindhagen | Photography and video documentation: Madde Edlund

Theater
FÖRLÅT (SORRY)
Once he was one of the greatest, but now his follower count has started to plummet. The sponsors have pulled out and the interview on Nyhetsmorgon has been cancelled. Behind him there is no longer any team. Now it’s just him and the camera, his last hope. Can he manage to win back the sponsors’ trust and get his followers to forgive him?
Sorry is a play inspired by the social media phenomenon of ”apology videos,” where influencers or public figures who have caused offense and faced criticism film themselves apologising to their followers and the general public. Sorry is an Ö2scenkonst production. The show is supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, the City of Stockholm and Svante Bergström’s Cultural Foundation.

Exhibition
FLOCK CIRCUMSTANCE
This exhibition presents a summation of a year-long, technology-assisted, international collaboration between Tinja Ruusuvuori (Finland), Madde Edlund (Sweden) and Aga Paulina Młyńczak (Poland, by way of Glasgow). Each floor of the gallery is occupied by an immersive installation which, with the help of multimedia tendrils woven through human sound, sight and utterance, explore the dynamic between language and society. virtual prevew

Released alongside the exhibition is a collaborative publication by the same title. This hand-bound edition elaborates the creative process which informed the installations. The publication takes into account everything from the mundane everyday circumstances of the artists to their theoretical motivations, and the methods of community engagement which came to build the foundations of the show.

‘SONIC ID SHOWER’ is an immersive sound sculpture that explores the intimacies of language. The ‘shower’ orientates the listener at different points in a spectrum of control and submission, according to scripts Madde collated from words and sounds gathered at participatory workshops she designed. Four soundscapes created by the artist envelop the listener in ambient, human, animal and technical sounds that weave into a stream intended to place them as calculated subjects. The sculpture, like the workshops themselves, invites consideration on how sounds and words position you, on your sense of agency as a receiver of sounds, and asks you to pause and let the words hold you gently in these different poses.

Short film
I’m continuously crying tears of estrogen and tears of testosterone
’The history of people who break the expected norms about gender and sexuality is quite extreme. Our trans and queer ancestors have experienced both love and hate, sometimes at the same time.
I’m continuously crying over my ancestors, friends, lovers, partners and parents who died way to early. I remember them all. May their memories be a revolution.’

Zafira Vrba Woodski plays a weeper in the film, crying tears of hormone gel. The testosterone gel was gifted from a friend who died in 2020. The estrogen gel is Zafirs’s own.
Director, producer and editor: Zafira Vrba Woodski
Camera: Madde Edlund
Music ”Tall, dark and menacing” by Pineresin

I’m continuously crying tears of estrogen and tears of testosterone has been screened at Uppsala Short Film Festival, Scottish Queer Film Festival, Madrid International LGBTI Film Festival and at World Pride in Copenhagen/Malmö.

Filmed documentation
A filmed souvenir from Unga Klara On Tour in South Africa
Unga Klara (Swedens national stage for children and young people) embarked on a world tour with performances and workshops, travelling to Istanbul, Beijing, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Washington DC, Houston and New York. At the same time, a national tour was underway, stretching from Skellefteå to Sundsvall, Skara and Malmö. The extensive project went under the name Unga Klara On Tour and consisted of four productions: Because I Say So, X, Girls Will Make You Blush and Who I Really Am. You can now experience the atmosphere and engagement from the visit to South Africa in a filmed documentation of a performing arts encounter between artists and audiences across borders.

Cemera and Edit: Madde Edlund | Musik: Dijle Neva Yigitbas (Neva Deelay) och Foad Arbabi | Produktion ljud: Miranda Rudklint, Julian Vigil, Asynja Gray och Sophie Bourdiol| Produktion: Miranda Rudklint