Searching for Caj

 

A text based research project that resulted in a book and in an exhibition at hangmenProjects in 2015.

Several years ago I received from a friend two folders that had been rescued from a rubbish bin after an antiquarian bookshop in Helsingborg had thinned out their shelves. “The Academy of Cutting and Tailoring in Stockholm” is written in gilt letters on each and they are filled with hand-drawn sketches of garments on tissue paper, scale 1:4. The name Caj Holm is written on every page, in blue ink, in a heavily slanted handwriting. The year is 1954 and Ängelholm and Stockholm are mentioned several times. There are no other clues. My project is concerned with creating clothes/objects from the patterns in the folders and with searching for the actual person, Caj Holm. Like a detective I shall search for this, to me unknown person, and try to find out about Caj Holm’s history with the help of archives and public authorities. A kind of modern archaeology where I search for remains. What became of you? What became of all that knowledge? What is left, what will become of it? A subjective approach and a conscious mix of fiction and reality – about searching and longing to know.

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