Project Presentation
In the classic film The Wizard of Oz, the main character Dorothy is asked to go someplace where she cannot cause any problems. Dorothy wonders if there is such a place and bursts into one of the world’s most famous film songs: Over the Rainbow. In Nicola Bergström Hansen’s video, the same song is performed by the BAE Systems Brass Band – the partly Swedish-owned arms industry giant BAE Systems own orchestra. The video contains a storm of news images from distant lands, where fighter jets and blue skies are not always associated with festivals. Campaign texts taken from the arms manufacturers Saab AB’s and BAE Systems’ marketing, are integrated into the composition. The texts convey the weapons industry’s views on their own contribution to a safe and protected environment.
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Nicola Bergström Hansen, born 1983, is an artist living and working in Stockholm, Sweden.She has a BFA from the School of Photography in Gothenburg and graduated 2012 with a MFA from Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.
Much of her work relies on the use and appropriation of public archives as a creative tool to examine historical events which many try to forget or erase. Bergström Hansen is particularly interested in how we attempt to categorize, understand and define violence, trauma and difference. By methods of deconstruction, sampling and remixing she attempts to find new ways of seeing and understanding.
