Autobank and Daphne – Södertälje’s Retelling of the Myth of Apollo

Former Södertälje konsthall director Joanna Sandell has parted ways with the municipal art space and reflects on the role of culture in society as the city embarks on a transformational process with a pared down art initiative.

The ghost of modernism breathes through central Södertälje. It is a friendly type of ghost, a little like Casper the Friendly Ghost, created as a cartoon character in the USA in the 1930s but only shared with the public through cartoons and books after World War II, following the years of modernism developing in North America.

I have been observing the black-and-white photography of the construction of central Södertälje. How perfect everything seems in its emergence. Idealism breathes through the ghostly perfection. A society where everyone is taken care of. Also, a society where everyone tries to behave in a similar fashion as a courtesy of the welfare state.

“Sweden Is not for beginners, darling” artist Laercio Redondo said with a smile as we discussed the very intricate ways Swedish society seems to foster and hold its citizens in place. The stoic modernist buildings of central Södertälje are a sharp contrast to the working-class image that has a tight grip on this city in Greater Stockholm. The very central areas of the city of Södertälje were built for institutional purposes: a library, offices for social services, police headquarters, and an art space. In fact, in 1978 a full central quarter was dedicated to public use and culture. About a decade or so later times had changed. Globalism would eventually push prices down and today almost everything in the so-called Luna mall is imported. The workers of the big Södertälje companies now live all over Greater Stockholm and fewer and fewer of them are needed as industries shift their production to other parts of the world.

Modernist idealism lurks as a mere “friendly ghost” in the central parts of Södertälje. Shops and restaurants in a somewhat dilapidated mall keep changing ownership, sculptures that were commissioned when the buildings were young stand next to autobank tellers and waste baskets. I always slow down when I pass Daphne, the sculpture made by Helga Henschen, an artist whose poetry was quoted at the funeral of the late prime minister Olof Palme, and at the funeral of foreign minister Anna Lindh. Henschen’s Daphne is far from Lorenzo Bernini’s baroque marble sculpture Apollo and Daphne. Helga’s bright ceramic version might stand alone but seems to carry the spirit of women from all around the globe. Henschen’s nativist drawings became symbols for women’s and children’s rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Henschen’s drawn alter-ego Rebella was an outspoken pacifist and Henschen herself was active in the social democratic movement. In 1975 she was commissioned to create the public art for the subway station of Tensta and her sculpture Daphne in Södertälje is still Sweden’s largest ceramic sculpture. It seems almost ironic that a sculpture devoted to the free spirit of creativity is trapped in a corner of an ageing dark shopping mall, a feminine ghost of Sweden’s social democratic cultural values. 

As part of the mall’s gradual decline, Södertälje’s art space was eventually cut in half. The building had deteriorated substantially and there were recurring problems with rainwater leaking through the roof into the exhibition space. In the summer of 2019, the floor of the art space was destroyed by moisture, and I was then the newly appointed director of Södertälje konsthall. The damaged floor coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and the decision by the city government to plan for the destruction of the buildings in the Luna District, it would simply be too costly to renovate. Södertälje konsthall would need to relocate, maybe in the next two or three years. How would I manage and plan for the artistic actions of the very last years of Södertälje konsthall in the current location? Would it be possible to practice an exorcism of misguided paternalist societal values?

By focusing on the very core of a kunsthalle’s activity, to support the production of new art, Laercio Redondo and Birger Lipinski were given the commission to create an artwork of the floor itself. Laercio and Birger had already been given a commission looking at the many changes in architecture and public art in Södertälje. The collaboration became both an exhibition project, The Phantom Collection, as well as a new floor for the remaining years of Södertälje konsthall in the Luna shopping mall location. A close reading of Caribbean poet Édouard Glissant has set up the grid for the thinking around the floor’s pattern. Visually, the practice of basket weaving, prevalent in South America but also in many other cultures, serves as the main reference to the work. The floor speaks of riches not in materiality but in being well read, generous and bold.

Downstairs, Daphne now stands in a dark corner of a forgotten mall in the blue-light glow of an autobank as Södertälje grapples with rejuvenation. Apollo is the Greek god of art, poetry, music and the Sun who honoured his unrequited love Daphne for eternity – in spite of her transformation into a laurel tree. Where now is Södertälje’s Apollo and what honour for Daphne in the city’s future?