by Lena Mattsson

We inhabit a world saturated by an unceasing torrent of images and narratives that stream forth from our digital screens – an eternal media din in which war, violence, human suffering and utopian visions flicker past at an almost hypnotic pace. Algorithms govern our lives. To pause and reflect may well constitute the artist’s true vocation: to knock upon the digital surface.

To “knock on the window to the unconscious” is a rare and potent metaphor, aesthetically charged, for that inward striving to establish contact with the concealed strata of the human psyche – the fleeting landscapes of dreams, the sedimentary layers of deeply buried memories, the silent whispers of intuition and the muted echoes of repressed emotion. The window appears here as the fragile interface between the illuminated interior of waking, rational existence and the vast, still-unexplored exterior of the unconscious. The act of knocking itself – that discreet, almost metallic and hesitant rhythm – embodies the sudden apprehension, the unexpected apparition of a dream, or the quiet signal of instinct that persistently seeks our attention and invites us to open towards that which otherwise remains hidden: to see beyond the immediate.

At the time of writing I am engaged upon several new site-specific films that will be shown and presented in my solo exhibition In the Artist’s Eye at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Sweden. The opening takes place on 20 March and the exhibition continues until 1 May 2027. A catalogue will also be produced for the exhibition, illuminating the central questions of its thematic inquiry.

Concurrently I am working on new films that will be screened at film festivals, institutions and galleries. Within a few weeks a new work will be shown at a gallery in Vienna, Austria, where the highly interesting artist and curator Kajsa Rhodin is responsible for the selection of artists and the thematic content.

When one works as an independent artist and filmmaker, new situations continually arise in the making of new works. Life happens – or everything goes to hell. In my own case life has placed obstacles in my path: I have been seriously ill, hospitalised with severe asthma and infections, and my skin cancer has not been eradicated. The surgeon was unable to remove all the cancer during the most recent operation; a further procedure is now being planned.

We all carry physiological or psychological scars, some visible, others not – something I shall penetrate and illuminate in my forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where physical and psychological violence likewise permeates the lens.

I found myself reflecting upon one of my principal sources of inspiration in filmmaking: Ingmar Bergman, and also David Lynch. In my new film stills from the work Knocking on the Window to the Unconscious, which you see here on the splendid website of Wild Filmmakers, you may perhaps discern a nod to the history of cinema. I have no master cinematographer at my disposal as Bergman once did – it is I myself who film and photograph all my projects. Yet like Bergman I receive an idea in my mind that I must pursue further. The mirror as metaphor is central to my artistic practice, and to see – or more precisely, to see beneath the surface – is fundamental to my work. In the mirror we reflect ourselves, yet we also reflect ourselves in the other people we encounter along life’s tangled path. Those we meet are decisive when one creates film: ideas may arrive stealthily or in flight, where one remembers or merely senses. Ideas are born as often from those one chooses to involve in a project, from those with whom one collaborates, as they are from the depths of one’s own inner consciousness. It becomes a metamorphosis.

I have the great privilege of collaborating with a remarkable team. Conny Malmkvist – musician, philosopher and art critic – frequently creates the music for my films, which I am free to alter and edit according to my own judgement. This is a wonderful liberty for an artist and filmmaker who loves the entire process of cinema. I devote considerable time to the filming, the soundscape and the editing. Of late I have also worked with the young and gifted artist Ebba Melber, who possesses an extraordinary ability to embody the psychological shifts in human expression before the camera. When it is right, it may perhaps become magical realism. Space, poetry – these are always something I strive towards in my cinematic works, which are often boundary-crossing. Moving image and film may appear in unexpected places and be projected onto islands, cliffs, buildings and houses in the public realm. For me there are no limits to what art and the moving image can be. Equally common, however, is my engagement with documentary and experimental film projects. I am a true cineaste who loves film and the moving image; art history, literature and poetry are also profound sources of inspiration in my artistic practice, as is life itself and our contemporary moment, where I endeavour to think critically of norms – a recurring thematic concern in my work, in which I also act as exhibition curator.

To see beneath the surface, with subtle displacements, and continually to wish to investigate and penetrate – to examine life, death and our shortcomings, the unnameable, our strengths and our failings – is something upon which I constantly reflect. To paint the light and the darkness of our lives. In order to perceive the light we must dare to confront the dark. To see and to reflect is perhaps the most essential thing a human being, an artist and a filmmaker can do – yet also to dare to open the door to the unexpected, perhaps to admit that which we would rather not see, and to knock upon the pane, or the door, to our unconscious, to the world of dreams.

I wish to conclude this essay by adding that I am deeply grateful and proud to be one of the artists within this boundary-crossing Wild Filmmaker community.

I should also like to offer a most heartfelt tribute to the entire Wild Filmmakers community – all the wonderful artists, screenwriters, filmmakers and others! An especially warm tribute I extend to their inspired, poetic, film-historically erudite and visionary editor-in-chief Michele Diomà and his entire outstanding international team.

Long live free art and free cinema, where new ideas flow unhindered, where boundaries dissolve and new possibilities open. Where art soars freely across the world, inspired by the traditions of film history yet equally open to the new and the visionary.

Here you can read more about my upcoming exhibition, In the Artist’s Eye, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Konstakademien): https://konstakademien.se/en/events/lena-mattsson/