Installation, papier-mâché, gilded branch 2021 and 2024
video made in collaboration with Linus Johansson and Andrea Lundgren

The work of Helena Wikström seeks to go underground – below the surface. She digs dens, creates tunnels and descends below the earth’s crust and the surface of the water in search of a space of gravity, a space defined by the attraction of our bodies to the ground. In her work there is also a great curiosity about who populates these places, whether they are real beings or mythological figures. The story of the golden branch derives from the Aeneid and is about how Aeneas, in order to descend into the realm of the dead, must find the golden branch and break it from the tree, whereby a new branch would grow.

Helena Wikström (b. 1964 in Tingsryd) lives and works in Holmsund/Umeå. She mainly works with different types of installations containing film, photography, sound art and sculpture, often in collaboration with other artists, musicians and filmmakers. In addition to being involved in the artist-run gallery Verkligheten in Umeå, she works part-time as a curator for Vita kuben, Norrlandsoperan. Her work has been shown at Tromsö film festival, Bildmuseet, LCCA, Riga, National gallery, Prague, SVT and a large number of exhibitions, festivals, projects, nationally and internationally. Represented in several municipalities and county councils, the Modern Museum, Stockholm and the public art agency in Sweden.