Maria Hallberg

Sweden, b. 1970 in Halmstad. Lives in Flen.

1991-96 Academy of Fine Arts, Valand, Gothen-burg.

1994-95 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (guest student).

1989-90 Nv Skånes school of Fine Arts.

First sound art work: Habits 1996.

My works are often about people’s normal life situations, things you’re not always aware of.

Except for sound art, I am mostly working with photo, video, objects and installations.

My first sound art work, was for a big exhibition during the year Capital of Culture in Copenhagen (-96). The theme of the exhibition was home. Right then I was back in Sweden after a year in Düsseldorf, Germany. I thought about what made me feel home in there. It was not the flat where I stayed, with almost no furniture. I realized that I very soon made up a lot of routines and habits to make my life comfortable … which way I went to the Academy, who I met, in which Café I went, and what I bought for breakfast and where. So for my work called “Habits” I made up sentences about different people, all fictional and their different kind of habits, like: “Anette always uses lipstick, otherwise she feels naked” or “Thomas always cuts his toenails in the shower”… The sentences were read as neutral as possible by a person and went on non-stop.

Another sound work, called “Borde” (ought to ...) was made for a exhibition called “Reality bites” at Färgfabriken, Stockholm There was five loudspeakers, each with a own voice, reading different sentences about people and what they think they ought to do or shouldn’t do. Some of the sentences just existed in one loudspeaker and some in all. They where not synchronized, but sometime it happened that the voices read the same sentences almost at the same time.

mariahallberg@bredband.net