In 2023, Kalle Brolin created a commissioned art video for the Art Museum of Gotland, exploring the history of sugar factories and farming in Gotland. The resulting two-channel video juxtaposed found and filmed images, revealing connections that were factual, historical, associative, or purely visual. The work was exhibited in a village near a former sugar factory.

Brolin is now developing a new video for On Mobilisation about the peace movement in Gotland, repurposing some scenes from the 2023 film. These include images of military vehicles assisting with the 1974 sugar beet harvest during severe flooding, when regular tractors were trapped in mud.

One image from the 2023 video, I Am Backwards and Mirrored Dub, includes a 1974 photograph by Ola Sollerman, showing army vehicles pulling tractors. Another features footage of a submerged 1,000-year-old fortress in a Gotland lake, filmed through a glass-bottomed boat piloted by Brolin’s colleague, Danae Theodoridou, from On Mobilisation. Danae served as Brolin’s “ghost” during filming. A planned group visit to the site was canceled due to weather.

Brolin’s upcoming video highlights the peace movement in Gotland, including a visit with peace activist Kerstin Blomberg. On her fridge, a Ukrainian postage stamp by Anastasiia Bondarets depicts a Ukrainian tractor towing an abandoned Russian tank during the current war. The video also features Blomberg’s home, as shown in a Swedish land survey map that subtly includes a peace dove near her house and marks the Avaeken oak tree’s location.

Avaeken, a 1,000-year-old oak with a 5.5-meter circumference, survived Sweden’s historical decree (1558–1830) reserving oak trees for the crown to build naval fleets. Farmers faced penalties for cutting them down. Filming will continue during Brolin’s next Gotland residency in September 2024.

Credits

• Video still from I Am Backwards
• Video still from forthcoming video
• The farmhouse of Kerstin Blomberg
• The Ava oak
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