Pilot – Av jord är du kommen: Marika Hedemyr

Research for a new mixed reality walk for graveyards. 

A pressing issue today is how we manage the earth’s resources to create a sustainable future, and how we create respectful relationships for peaceful coexistence. In this project Marika Hedemyr tackles these issues artistically. The conceptual starting point is that the smallest ingredients that make up our mobile digital devices – minerals and matter that come from the earth, are also the building blocks of our human body. In such a perspective, the human body and the phone are one. This provides a perspective of infinity, geologic time, and recurring cycles of becoming. One of the few public places where the concrete relationship between bodies, earth and time can both be seen and felt, are graveyards. They are a borderland between the dead and the living, between sadness and hope, between stillness and activity. In the project Marika explores ways in which a mixed reality performance could take place at a graveyard, and be both an individual and a collective experience.

A recurring theme in Marika’s practice is the relationship between the physical body and the body of society. In this work the body of the earth is also included. The project is part of the Element Series, a new series of mixed reality experiences that explore our co-existence with the planet earth through the elements earth, water, fire, and air.

With the support from Region Skåne.

Marika Hedemyr is a choreographer/artist who creates public art, choreography and mixed reality. She explores coexistence through the emotional and political relations between people and places. Her work is characterized by everyday situations in a twisted reality, precision, humour and physicality. Her site-specific mixed reality walks combine documentary material, mobile augmented reality-technology and performative formats into an affective experience that tickles the audience’s imagination, heart, and thoughts. Recent works are Next To You at Korsvägen (2017)–about coexistence in a shared public space, co-produced with Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival and RISE Interactive, and ENTER Mölndal (2018/2019)–a series re-activating cultural heritage sites commissioned by Mölndals stadsmuseum. Her publications include a chapter in Art and The City (2017, Routledge), and the PhD Thesis Mixed Reality in Public Space (2023, Malmö University Press) which explores composition methods that combine choreography and interaction design.

Visit Maria Hedemyr’s artist page – marikahedemyr.com