Kalle Brolin is an artist and a writer.
Works form associative connections, through montage of images and stories, between political groups, communities and people dispersed in histories and geographies. Most works involve long-term research processes, some take years to complete. Methods include association and dialogue; formats include video, performance, and installation.
DL Portfolio (PDF) of all recent, ongoing and older works (coming soon)
4K video installation and performance
Amir Heidari, smuggler of refugees, was filmed and interviewed in a Swedish prison, talking about a Europe without walls. A performance piece describes how various parties through the years have tried to influence different versions of the filmed material.
Sunshine Socialist Cinema (2011-ongoing)
Solar powered outdoor cinema showing art video
Solar powered outdoor cinema. We’re re-distributing surplus light from day to night by solarpanel and projector, and screen art videos that generate discussion on radical leftwing topics. Our themes include post-industrial survival, artists joining political collectives, politics of climate change, and more.
Travellers and Brolin (2012-2015)
HD video installation, 25 songs, writing
The artist Kalle Brolin records noise versions of 25 songs of Traveller musician Lorens Brolin, then plays them in front of descendants of Lorens Brolin. The question if Kalle Brolin could be part of the ethnic minority of Travellers generates interview videos, newspaper articles, and public talks.
Jag är Skåne / I am Scania (2016)
HD video
"As coal was fuel for the machinery, sugar was fuel for the workers." An associative montage of images, film and voices from the coalmines and sugarfactories of Scania gives form to our landscape, culture, economy, and history. The video also reflects upon its' own making.
A filmed performance set in an old theatre in a coalmining town. Stories of the recuperation of working class culture around the coalmines and sugarfactories of Scania, punctuated by musical numbers from a gospel choir, a brass band, and other musicians.
Jag är Framtiden / I am the Future (2017-ongoing)
Image collection on Instagram
A collection of found images and notes on the culture, landscape, history and lives around the coalmines and sugar factories of Scania. Associative connections are set up between the images and stories. The collection is both basis for other works - future films - as well as an encyclopedic work on its own.
Letterpress prints
Quotes from posters and prints of the Paris Commune 1871 printed as Cumbia-style letterpress posters in Buenos Aires.
HD video installation
Notes on exiliados of the Paris Commune in 1871 ending up in Buenos Aires, paired with stories of occupied factories and neighbourhood parliaments in Buenos Aires in 2001 (suggesting links through time and geography). Four filmed hallucinations of visual overlaps. Songs of Paris 1871 re-recorded in Buenos Aires.
4:3 video installation with poster
Girls in Tallinn climbing the rooftops to find a free space. Video composed of three viewpoints: the girls' own films from the rooftops, an animation, interviews. The screening of the work became the basis for a second video, set on a rooftop in Belgrade, called Showing Roof Girls.