Today marks the last day of the residency of artist and writer Kalle Brolin at the Baltic Art Center in Gotland. From May 8, 2023, to June 1, 2023, Brolin began his two-year artistic research project titled Languages of Mobilisation. His research focused on mapping both historical and contemporary peace movements in Gotland. He aimed to create an image-based encyclopedia documenting his findings, contributing to the local visual vocabulary of peace and military mobilisation on the island.

Kalle Brolin writes about his experience:
“In War Primer, Bertolt Brecht has combined photographs cut from newspapers with short poems, or epigrams. Each page has one image, and a poem to comment upon the image. A primer is a book of ABC’s meant for teaching children to read or a short introductory text on a subject. Brecht wrote his War Primer during and shortly after the Second World War, as an introduction to the forces which give us war. He had planned to follow it with a Peace Primer, but that plan never came to fruition. I imagine I could use the idea of this never-written Peace Primer, this ABC of peace or this short introductory book on peace, as inspiration for an artwork to come out of my stay on Gotland. This introduction to peace only exists as an idea, in potentia. Never witnessed outside of the mind of a writer who is long dead.”

Photo credits : Danae Theodoridou, Astrid Åkerblom