Poor Yuri!
2023 — work-in-progress
This project was inspired by the personal archive of the artist couple Kajsa Zetterqvist (b.1936) and Per Adde (b.1926-2020). Ilmira Bolotyan visited their place with artist and filmmaker Ingela Johansson, and independent researcher and curator Olga Shirokostup due to the project initiated by curator Maria Lind “Women in the North: Сhapter Two”.
At the heart of this project is an interest in the life and work of the artist couple Kajsa Zetterqvist and Per Adde. Kajsa met Per during her student years in Stockholm, where she was enrolled in studies at the Royal Art Academy in the1950-60s. They lived as activists in Erik Larsa-Steggos former residence for summer reindeer herding in northern Norway, located in Graddis, Sapmi. Together, they relocated there and built a vernacular home, a center of many centers, that has been a fixed point for the region. From their home, they actively participated in saving Saltfjället and Alta-fight, having recognized the pre-Norwegianisation oppressive attitude towards the Sámi people well before the 60s. Now Per has passed away and Kajsa is still at home, working as an artist with support from her friends, neighbors and colleagues, many being former students or children of the environmental activists. With shared interests, Illmira, Olga, and Ingela will create diverse narratives in dialogue with Kajsa’s life and work.
Kaisa and Per visited Leningrad in 1986 and 1989 as part of a cultural exchange between the Nordland region and the Leningrad region. This was, as far as we know, the first time that a Soviet region had signed an agreement of cooperation with a region in Western Europe.There they met and became friends with Soviet painter Yuri Reshkin. It was his letters, written in Russian, although Kaisa and Per could not read them, that Ilmira Bolotyan found in Kaisa and Per’s archive.
Ilmira Bolotyan together with cameraman Helga Lubartovic are currently making a documentary about Yuri Reshkin, cultural exchange between the Nurlan region and the Leningrad region and the fate of painters in general.