CAMILLA JOHANSSON BÄCKLUND
Artist Researcher Teacher

the cykling (2015)

For three hours of performance I bicycled a bike with a dia-projector, projecting a picture of myself. My projection and me were dressed in the same grey suit.

This performance is done as part of my autoethnographic study The unfree will (Den ofria viljan) in witch I process experiences gained as an artist and a teacher, working in a labour market training programme.   The young people I worked with were often written epithets from the surrounding community, and even from each other. My experience was that they rarely got to own the narrative about themselves.

To become imperceptible oneself, to have dismantled love in order to become capable of loving. To
 have dismantled one’ s self in order finally to be alone and meet the true double at the other end of the line. A clandestine passenger on a motionless voyage. To become like everybody else; but this, precisely, is a becoming only for one who knows how to be nobody, to no longer be anybody. To paint oneself
 grey on grey. (Deleuze)

The work also refer to Momo/The Grey Gentlemen/The Men in Grey and is in a way a criticism of labour and motivation.

Performed at 13festivalen 5th of January 2015, Konstepidemin Gothenburg.