SOAP Art and Publishing

Anna Bokström. Artist, publisher, climate activist and curator

Based in Malmo, Sweden, Bokström’s works address community cohesion/experience, social structures and subject knowledge in contexts of climate crisis She employs a method of durational storytelling to generate portraiture and documentary in video, sculpture and drawing formats. Since 2019 she is working on The Bread Boy of Herculaneum together with Nina Bacos.

Annas work has been funded by Konstnärsnämnden (The Swedish Art Council), Helge Ax:son Johnsons Foundation, Both Ends , Riksförbundet Sveriges Konstföreningar and Konstfrämjandet

Konstnärer Tolkar AP Fonderna 

Exhibition and Action to protest pension fund investment in fossil fuel by artist group Konstnärer Tolkar AP Fonderna in Stockholm June 2021. Project leaders and curators Anna Bokström and Johanna Norrbo. Participants: Nina Bacos,  Ann Engqvist, Sara Granér, Max Gustafsson, Ilona Huss Walin , John Huntington, Lena Ignestam, Babawale Obayanju and Ella Tillema.

Essay in Notes Photography Journal by Maria Sledmere featuring Anna’s images together with Aase Goldsmith’s images.

She has also organised several artistic climate actions together with the Network for Art and Climate in Malmö and has been part of raising discussions and awareness around issues such as fossil fuels divestment, protests against TTIP and Ceta, developments of new oil refineries, etc.

Päronskogen

The exhibition Har du alla dina själv och dina bromsar/Do You Have All Yourselves and Your Brakes 2008 was made together with Marianne Andersson. The commission was part of the Konstfrämjandet 6 year long research initiative Skiss. The project explored the possible roles of the artist and art in society beyond the contemporary or traditional art setting by placing artists working with dialogue-based artistic methods in public administration and other workplaces.

Two outcomes of the project at Päronskogen were that the staff started drawing classes with the residents and that the presence of the artist generated a space which allowed for different kinds of conversations to take place. Link to interview and publication scroll down mid page. Link to the organisation that initiated the research about the project Konstfrämjandet 

AnnaGreta Lejion Affären

In this 13-minute video she worked with the former-offender Björn Eklund  and retired police officer Åke Feldt to portray two former opponents who recount memories of the Swedish underworld during the 1970s. The conversation centres on a plan to kidnap the Swedish Minister of Labor Anna-Greta Leijon, and the episode’s links to the Baader-Meinhof League. Placed on a sitting room sofa with a busy bookcase behind them, serious and awkward with the camera but intent on grasping a few moments of reliving a time of importance, it becomes obvious that time has shifted their positions in relation to each other.  They are no longer in polarity to each other but rather more like colleagues who worked in different departments at the same company.  

Annedalsskolan 1997-2003 / Nordhemsskolan 2003-2006

Her first major work Annedalsskolan 1997-2003 / Nordhemsskolan 2003-2006 which documented one group of children from their first year in primary school to their last year in middle school was carried out over 9 years. This project is an exceptional document in that it's quite possibly one of the last projects of this kind where an unaffiliated photographer gets access to follow up with a group of children in their daily space. The duration of the project is also an important aspect of the work. The growing children's interaction with each other and with her as well as lonely private moments are carefully rendered in a way that stands in stark reflection to today's over-photographed, sanitised, and filtered selfie culture.