Lots of Swedish staircases and similar public spaces are sponged and stenciled as you can see at the pictures beside. Fundamentally they all look the same, apart from the color and the pattern. But if you need a further description, you may think about words like:

Common

Impersonal

General

Authentic and stereotyped

The pictures are also part of my new work with the title: I am not talking about us; I am talking about people in general. Here I use the interior as a metaphor, a symbol for expressions like this ones. Phrases that both generalize and grade. In the same time romanticize and condemn. Phrases, which make differences between: you and me and we and them. I am interested in what the image of we looks like compared to the image of so-called ordinary people. I write short fictive stories, where I often use clichés, spoken word and irony. Both irony and clichés are included in our daily talk and the purpose is to emphasize an opinion without really say it, without really mention it. Using text in installations is a way for me to attack and point out the attitudes and the values that are hidden in our everyday behavior and speech.

Texts from my last shown work: Camouflage - Terrors of Daily Life. (Which you also can see documentation from, beside)

"Are you going already? Got up early. Working in a hospital. Do you really need to be wide-awake for that? Surely you can do that sort of work in your sleep? Wiping bottoms. What a bloody job! I was only joking. Can't you see? I was joking. Don't you understand irony? Good God. You must see that I didn't mean it seriously. They both laugh and return to discuss homelessness. I hate people who just take no notice of homeless people on the street. Ok, ok, everyone doesn't have to buy their magazine but one can at least show them a little respect. So you have gone and got a proper job? So you just need to get yourself a Safeway's uniform. I mean so that you feel at home. Just joking. But make sure you don't fasten. Now we can go to a real sort of a dive that I know just round here. Do you want to come? It's just a lorry driver and us there. It's a really cool place. Poor you, working when everyone else is asleep. Now you've got something to do, anyway. Can't be much fun cleaning when everything gets messed up again and again. Young children at home. Ow, that can't be easy! More washing up. You'll have plenty to do at any rate. Can't be much fun sitting here when people complain all the time. Not much of a job really, but it's just a temporary one? It's a temporary job, surely. Isn't it? They smile and mumble something inaudible."

Lisa Torell

www.lisatorell.com