Annika Eriksson

While the Gothenburg Museum of Natural History’s collections focus on wild animal life, Annika Eriksson’s slide show features animals not normally found in the museum: our beloved pets. Eriksson’s piece on view at the Natural History Museum comprises still shots from old home movies donated by the public to the Media Archive of Central England. The animals we find in these pictures have all lived their lives in close relationships with humans. The pictures represent the shared lives of the human and non-human members of the family, full of love and caring. At the same time, the relationship is far from equitable: the animals have not chosen man’s love, nor have they any opportunities to escape it.

Annika Eriksson (b. 1956 in Malmö, Sweden) lives and works in Berlin. At the core of Eriksson’s artistic practice is an interest in social interaction: how do we live together; what kind of societies do we create; what happens in the margins or in the transition from one social order to another? Her recent exhibitions and projects include ANIMAL at Tate Liverpool (2019), Cat Portrait and Other Works at Kunsthall Oslo (2018), and The Social at Moderna Museet Malmö (2017).

Artwork

and they were very loved
2017
Installation with digitalized stills from analogue films
25 min, loop
Courtesy the artist
Material from The Media Archive for Central England (MACE)

Venue

Gothenburg Museum of Natural History

 

Image: Still from and they were very loved, Annika Eriksson, 2017.