“Bollen” is part of the series “Sverige/Schweden”, which comprises reworkings of photographic scenes based on 130 photographs taken by the artist’s father during her childhood. The first works were created as early as 1992, when Miesenberger was studying at Konstfack. In many respects, Sverige/Schweden has functioned as a life project for the artist. Since she began working on the series in the early 1990s, it has been a long-term, ongoing project in which Miesenberger is both subject and object. The project, and not least its title, points to her dual affiliations as a second-generation immigrant with an Austrian father. In the work, the images have freed themselves from the Miesenberger family album and entered a public sphere that differs substantially from that of most images of the same kind.

This is not a simple reuse of existing photographs, but a craftsmanlike and artistic transformation into entirely new works. Technically, it involves a complex process in which Miesenberger makes contact sheets from the old negatives and blacks out the selected motifs with an ink pen. The images are then photographed with a large-format camera and developed in the darkroom. This time-consuming analogue process produces new originals, new negatives and new prints. It is primarily in the darkroom process that the soul of the image emerges, as she experiments with shading and sharpness. She transforms her father’s amateur photographs into sensitive works of art. These are quiet images that address memory, identity and longing, in which the surroundings constitute a universal setting that resonates with our collective consciousness. At times, individual figures are spared the darkness of the pen and appear as pale, indistinct forms, contributing to the discussion of each person’s subjective experiences and perceptions of themselves and their surroundings. It is precisely this indistinctness that ensures that Miesenberger’s images never become confessional or private, despite always taking herself as their point of departure. It is not her life that is depicted—it is ours. The situations and surroundings, and the recognisable elements in the images, allow the viewer to imbue them with meaning.