HÄR BOR VI / WE LIVE HERE / NA WE DEY HERE is an exhibition and a performance. The work takes as its starting point a story about an extended family, their everyday life, their living and working conditions and shared community.

This extended family holds, among others, Den Samtida Krigaren (The Contemporary Warrior), Skuggan (The Shadow), Fake Destiny and De Älskande (The Lovers). On the periphery are teachers, foodora customers, anonymous managers, academics and Sweden. It is a story about home, dignity, survival and solidarity. The work depicts the collective, their common voice, their (metaphorical) home. We imagine it almost as drawing a map where we create a more open and fluid worldview through the story of this family constellation.

The performance is mainly in Swedish but has smaller sections in English, Nigerian pidgin, singing and the global language of sharing a meal.

HÄR BOR VI / WE LIVE HERE / NA WE DEY HERE consists of two parts: “The Room” and “The Performance”. ”The room” is a physical expansion of the story in the form of an exhibition, which on some occasions becomes the stage for “The Performance”.

The Room

The exhibition depicts the story through textile collages, objects, images and sound. The works, like the language in the story, are a kind of creole, where we use material from the participating artists’ relatives and families in Sweden, Nigeria, Congo, the Czech Republic and Chile as well as recycled textiles found at flea markets; fabrics from the “folk homes” (folkhem) of different times and places to give the family/the story life and form.

The Performance

On 4 occasions the room becomes a stage for The Performance, when the home is populated and the characters’ everydays come to life, portrayed by 6 different performers through a collective reading of the script, a dinner and a party!

All of the invited performers relate, in different ways, in their artistry and lives, to the theme of the work and are therefore also given space to exhibit their own works/arrange conversations/use the stage within the framework of the project. For BABYFACE, this is conceptually important as the work is not only about community and home but also wants to open up and practice these words/concepts.

PROGRAM

Friday 6 November

Open studio

Friday 13 november

17.00-19.00: Exhibition opening
19.00-22.00: Bookrelease for Zafira Vrba Woodskis poetrycollection “Återtagande av en kropp”.

EXHIBITION OPENING HOURS

18 November: 17.00-20.00
19 & 20 November: 12.00-17.00
25 November: 17.00-20.00
26 & 27 November: 12.00-17.00

PERFORMANCE

Lördag 14 november

18.00-22.00: PREMIERE – Performance

Söndag 15 november

13.00-17.00: Performance

Lördag 21 november

18.00-22.00: Performance

Söndag 22 november

13.00-17.00: Performance

Participants

Production

BABYFACE

Idea and concept

Alejandra Goic and Johanna Gustavsson in collaboration with Rex Okoro Ijomanta.

Exhibition/Textile works

Johanna Gustavsson, installed together with Rex Okoro Ijomanta.

Script

Text by Johanna Gustavsson, adaptation together with Alejandra Goic.

Performers

Ese Xzen, Zafira Vrba Woodski, Steve Shungu, Rex Okoro Ijomanta, Alejandra Goic and Johanna Gustavsson.

BABYFACE

The cultural association BABYFACE was founded in 2016 by the actor Alejandra Goic and the artist Johanna Gustavsson. They made their first performance at aliasTEATERN in Stockholm called Läs mellan raderna kommatecken bitch (Read between the lines comma bitch), about class mobility and being a Killjoy. The work was based on a text published in FAGS:METOD and the magazine Brand. BABYFACE has also collaborated with Rex Okoro Ijomanta and the Afrofusion band De Empirez and made sound works and performances between 2022 and 2024. The characters from these works have begun to live their own lives in the script that is now the basis for the work Vi bor här/ Na we dey here / Here we live.