Marika Troili

Waterside Recreation, solo exhibition at Marabouparken, Sundbyberg, Sweden, 2019.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Engblad Béranger

In the exhibition Waterside Recreation, Marika Troili builds upon her interest in words’ capacity to establish their own systems of value. In previous bodies of work she has examined how a number of large companies officially communicate, now she has turned toward the voice of ‘the public’.
The source of the exhibition is in a number of documents from the City of Sundbyberg (in which Marabouparken konsthall is located.), concerning the city’s future development: Sundbyberg 2030 – Urban and Sustainable and Sundbyberg’s New City Centre, amongst others. In these documents the reader will encounter formulations like: “The beach promenade along the Bällsta Stream and Bällsta Bay will be developed into an attractive area, offering waterside recreation and a range of activities”. Hence the title and subject matter of Troili’s exhibition.
The speculative tone of the documents projects a stylised image of the future city, where the water in general, and the Bällsta Stream in particular, plays a significant role as driving force and as social and economical value. Through both studious readings of these documents, as well as methodical wandering and boat rides up the stream, Marika Troili has probed the flow of activity that both circumscribes the water and that the water gives rise to. This is interpreted and mirrored in the exhibition in a way that provides us with new perspectives on the processes that take place in and along the stream. In the gallery a spatial figuration takes form in which the water is both material and meaning.
The stream is also the homestead of beings with other, ulterior motives than those postulated by the city, for example the beaver and the nettle. In a glass display case in the exhibition lays the piece General Plan of The Nettle 2030. Gathered here are general plans from the four municipalities, through which the Bällsta Stream flows, covered beneath a fine powder of ground nettle. The nettle, which on the one hand is considered as an unwanted weed and on the other as a sought after herbal remedy, also becomes a symbol in the tale of the town. A pervading feature in Troili’s body of work is that it at once puts into play an unveiling and obscuring of in the impact the reports have on, and our image of, the future city.
Yet another dimension in Waterside Recreation is the link to the history of Marabouparken and the former chocolate factory (which now houses the gallery), where ideas of the causal relationship between decorative, beautiful environments and good health and morals form the basis of the park’s and factory’s design – ideas that recur in contemporary urban planning.
Marika Troili sharpens our gaze beyond what can be seen by the bare eye. With the help of found materials and objects; through installation, video, photography and text, Troili poetically and tactfully portrays questions of urban regeneration, cultural and natural environments, economies and ecologies (recognised and not), recreation and productivity. In a continuous movement from surface to depth and back, she constructs new systems of linguistics, concepts and perceptions.

Text by Karin Bähler Lavér, curator.

An interview about the exhibition can be found in C-print an online journal about contemporary art.

Nässlans översiktsplan 2030 - General Plan of The Nettle 2030, general plans from Järfälla, Solna, Stockholm and Sundbyberg municipalities, nettle powder made from nettles picked along the stream, 2019.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Engblad Béranger

Blåstruktur / Structure of Blue* , water cannisters, fountain pumps, stream water, 2019. * The totality of bodies of water within a geographical area.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Engblad Béranger