Academic Institution: School of Photography at Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. >>>
Discipline: Photography
Supervisors: Mika Hannula, Professor, School of Photography and Ulla M Holm, Professor, Gender Studies, Department of Cultural Sciences

During the Academic Year of 2009-2010 Annica Karlsson Rixon was on the Bo Samuelsson PhD Exchange Programme at University of California, Berkeley. During this time Karlsson Rixon's supervisor is Trinh T, Minh-ha, Professor of Rhetoric and of Gender and Women's Studies >>>

Curriculum Vitae Annica Karlsson Rixon: Full version August 2010 >>>

Bio: Annica Karlsson Rixon is an artist and a doctoral student in practiced based artistic research at the School of Photography, University of Gothenburg. She has an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and was Professor in Photography at University of Gothenburg between 2003-2007. She has exhibited extensively since the early 1990’s.

In her practice she investigates issues of feminism, queer, class, identity politics, visual representation and history writing through the making of art. Karlsson Rixon’s research project consists of three photography and video based art installations. Feminist and queer studies, as well as visual and photography theory inform her artistic research practice.

Research Brief:
Resonance, State of Mind and Code of Silence - reflections on visual representation, construction of identity and writing of history through three lens based art projects. Resonance, State of Mind and Code of Silence constitutes the visual part of the dissertation. The trilogy is presented as three separate art installations, which co-exist and cross-inform each other. They are all made in collaboration with artist Anna Viola Hallberg. In different ways these lens-based art installations cast light on aspects of socially and culturally constructed identity-based groups in contemporary society. Photography and video are used in combination to expand on the separate histories of the two media with regard to interviews and portraits in documentary genres. This is the point of departure for all three installations. As for the overall narrative, the topics of how and why groups construct networks and communities to achieve a sense of belonging are in focus. The projects look at the social conventions family, love and career and deal with power relations exemplified by issues of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and class. The method of collecting the material is similar in the three projects, but the questions asked and issues raised are specific to each installation. Portraiture and personally based stories are central. The trilogy reflects upon civil rights issues and the idea of being safe and productive within the society, operating in the space between personal choice and social expectations. Memory, narration, visual representation and oral history are central matters. In each of the three works a different group is approached that relates to the artists’ personal lives. Resonance , our first collaboration, focuses on a network of peers belonging to a successful generation of artists and curators. They are all women who entered the Scandinavian art scene in the 1990´s, and now have international careers. On one level Resonance is an examination of the welfare state. In more specific terms, it looks into the impact of the conditions it creates for the portrayed women to succeed on the art scene. Code of Silence is based on memories told by a sibling group of five who grew up on a small farm in rural Gothenburg, Sweden. The farm had to face the challenge of major cultural reforms in the nineteenth century, but remained intact. It became a target for expropriation during the 1950´s and 70´s to make way for the reforms involved in building the modern Sweden. It remained an object of possible interest for the national cultural heritage. The farm was finally demolished in 2004. Code of Silence has UN’s Declaration of Human Rights paragraph 17 relating to everyone’s right to a home, as the starting point. The installation includes a large number of private and official documents such as hand-written wills, receipts from selling milk, and letters to the King of Sweden. State of Mind, exhibited in Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Something, explores everyday life and the boundaries between ethics, legislation, prejudice and civic expectations in the LGBTQ life of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Keywords: feminism, queer, class, visual representation, history writing through the making of art, lens-based art, experimental documentary


::: Installation views from the exhibition Today Tomorrow Forever (slideshow) >>>
::: Installation views from State of mind (slideshow) >>>
::: The series Private Premises (slideshow)>>>
::: Installation views from Resonance (slideshow) >>>
::: Annica Karlsson Rixon, Gender Researcher Database (GERDA) at the library of University of Gothenburg >>>