Coming off the Real Time, for a While

Anna Friedrich follows Sven Axel Nilsson into the morning fog. Sven Axel works as a farmer somewhere in Sweden, the sea nearby. But he is much more than that. Friedrich teases it out of him by asking him about his dreams and fears, by wanting to know which of the four elements is his favourite. She hands him the camera because he wants to film stones, so a short but no less spectacular contribution about a mystical rock formation becomes part of this unconventional portrait. But Sven Axel also likes acting and so, without further ado, he becomes this, too: an actor.

Far away from almost any disturbance, the two begin a kind of game in which both Sven Axel’s mother and an area used by the Swedish army for exercises play roles. “For me the world is a quite big globe. ’Cause I haven’t travelled so much in my life,” he says. And adds: “Now, the wide, wide world seems very small. But it’s not true. If you sail, or you’re walking or you ride, it’s quite a big world, it is.” In any case, Sven Axel’s world is an extremely rich one. Anna Friedrich makes it negotiable. (catalogue DKO Leipzig, Carolin Weidner)