Anna Bokström

Based in Malmo, Sweden, Anna Bokstrom’s works reify the processes of learning and identity-development in contexts of societal and environmental change.

Employing methods of storytelling, she generates documentary portraiture in video, sculpture and drawing formats.

Bokström’s research is intuitive and iterative; for each phase she selects a controlled situation (such as a school, or an organised dialogue) and by making images, reflecting and returning, she works through the material she generates to further evolve the narratives. In this way the project and works unfold themselves.

image: Annedalsskolan, Nordhemsskolan 1997-2006 #40 of 75, Anna Bokström, Göteborg 1997 

Her work developing the projects Annedalsskolan (1997 to 2003) and Nordhemsskolan (2003 to 2006) was achieved through sustained engagement with a group of children during a period of nine years, from their first year in primary school to their last year in middle school.

image: Annedalsskolan, Nordhemsskolan 1997-2006 #39 of 75, Anna Bokström, Göteborg 1997

After having worked with people involved with drug usage, Bokström chose to address what are considered to be stable and protected environments; invited into the classroom by the school, she produced a portrait of the place where young minds and identities are formed, where others are not permitted to enter.

Her choices of technique (35 mm, medium format, and large format color and black and white analogue photography) were determined by the moment which demanded its own format. The published images are printed in various sizes from 24 x 30cm to 200 x 300cm.

image: Annedalsskolan, Nordhemsskolan 1972-2006 #75 of 75, Anna Bokström, Göteborg 2006

As part of Konstfrämjandet’s initiative Skiss/Sketch (2008) Bokström was invited to apply her dialogical artistic methods with the staff of public administrations. Working with Marianne Andersson over a six month period, they made portraits and recordings with residents and staff at a nursing home in Malmö. Outputs include a publication, animation and drawings, public presentations and an archive at http://www.publikation.rollon.net/.

In the 7-minute video AnnaGreta Lejion Affren (2003) 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), centring upon the kidnapping of Minister of Labor Anna-Greta Leijon, and the episode’s links to the Baader-Meinhof League.

Since 2017, Bokström has focused singularly upon issues of climate change; together with the journalist Johanna Norrbo, she’s been working on a larger, ongoing, photo report/editorial project ‘Fossil Resistance’. Published in newspapers and magazines throughout Europe, the work represents people who have been affected by the fossil fuel industry expansion, and their protest onsite and at cross-global climate events including the COP conferences.

image: Conference of the Parties (COP24) Staff, Anna Bokström, Katowice 2018

As a member of the Network for Art and Climate (Malmö), Bokström has organised several culture-led climate actions addressing a range of issues and in collaboration with the agencies Both Ends and All Set For Change, she will produce an exhibition outside the Sweden Ministry of Finance (Spring 2021).

image: Conference of the Parties (COP24), Lounge, Anna Bokström, Katowice 2018

Since 2019 she has been working with Nina Bacos on The Bread Boy of Herculaneum.

image on the Contributors index page: Knock On. Melendugno 2019 © Anna Bokström and Nina Bacos