HearHere
In summer of 2017 I played at the edge of the Mälaren in Bredäng, as part of Casey Moir's Hear Here sound walk, which included live performances from several from both Casey and Finn Loxbo at different points along the way from the Bredäng subway station down to the water.
To read more about Here Hear and this work, you may go here.
Bredäng is a miljonprogram ("million program") area, with iconically brutalistic apartment buildings standing in strict formation around gardens, parks and green spaces. It was built in the heyday of such developments. Artists and designers were brought in to create the improbably welcoming apartments encased in these gigantic concrete monoliths, as well as the green areas outside, and the imagined center where people might take a coffee, buy groceries, visit the doctor or go to school.
Crossing the park, one comes first to some lower, semi-detached houses, then to much older buildings.
One is the Jakobsbergsgården, an old historic manor house with an occasional cafe and midsommar celebrations for the neighborhood. Posted outside is the visage of a young girl who had something to do with the house years ago.
Continuing towards the water, one arrives at the Konditori Lyran. "Lyran" means lyre in Swedish, and there is a big, golden lyre on the lawns at the entrance. This is a grand old house, with gingerbread trim and a tower, and wrap-around balconies with beautiful views far down to the water and long across the southern end of town.
Continuing down, there is a long trail that follows the edge of the Mälaren, with forest, and stone formations all along the water.
Låt Mazen Stanna!
In 2014 I was living there, together with musicians Elsa Bergman and Emil Strandberg. Elsa was deeply enthusiastic about the Bredäng neighborhood, and often went knocking on the doors of local businesses to see if she might put on concerts of improvised music there. She succeeded in having a show or two at such unlikely places as the krog (local pub), and the un-pretentious konditori (a special kind of Swedish coffee shop) owned by friendly men from Turkey who would often give us extra coffee or sweets.
One week there were signs posted all over the neighborhood about a teenage boy who was being threatened with deportation to his land of birth, even though he had not family there, and had not lived there since infancy. There were fliers up all over the neighborhood, placed by very dedicated teenagers in the neighborhood, that had his picture, alongside the proclamation "Låt Mazen Stanna!" ("Let Mazen Stay!").
In the mornings around the square, the roma women would meet on their way into town to try to collect money for the day by begging, collecting cans or selling little things like wreaths or wooden spoons. They had an encampment near Bredäng centrum then for a while, so it was their morning stop.
One day during that time, the kulturskolan (or “culture school”, a place where music, art and/or dance is taught to primary and secondary school kids) was having a little festival. They had a professionally built little stage, and had wheeled a piano onto it. Droves of parents watched their children do ballet or other child choreographies to cheerfully tinkered out piano, punctuated with a cello solo. The crowd had its back pointed turned on another celebration of culture, going on not more than two meters away.
Opposite the cultural school, a man who seemed to be a youth leader was surrounded by teenagers, all of whom came from families who were not Swedish. They had wheeled out a jankily strapped together amplifier and battery, along with a shopping cart with a microphone. The kids watching, and a few of their parents, met the disdainful backs of the kulturskolan parents over a chasm of short space. With a crackling buzz, teh amplifier sparked to life, and the kids started having a hip-hop contest.
I stood at the edge of the infinitely wide 2 meter chasm and watched.
Not long after, Elsa had convinced the owners of the konditori to let her have a concert, together with Isak Hedtjärn. At first the afternoon coffee drinkers were suspicious. But Isak's melismatic playing on his metal clarinet made them smile. Then Elsa took her bass outside, because the ceiling in the konditori was too low for it. She stood at the center of the square, smack where that space between the kulturskola and youth group events had faced off, shouted "LÅT MAZEN STANNA!" and began to play.
The Roma women walked in circles around her, singing softly. The men in the cafe clapped. The old ladies getting groceries stopped and smiled. She played fiercely together with children hollering, cafe goers chatting. In that moment we were all in the same place.
