The portraits of the international students we’re going to make end up in the Mälardalens högskola first. But after that they will travel through several locations in Västerås and Eskilstuna, like the city hall, museums, science parks and other public places. Some nice small rooms, so the visitor can enter the room with just one portrait in it and fully experience it, like having a intimate fika with the person. Some interesting walls in which you have more space to walk around the portraits. Or some places with interesting light effects where we can play with the light on the paintings.

We also want to attach some physical things to it. Not only a printed portrait but adding drawers, music, booklets, etc. By digging deeper in the persons life, looking into their cd-rack, opening their drawers, listinging to their music, opening their cupboards, you’ll get to know the person more, see more photos of the persons life, etc.

More to come :)

* Another post not about school.. Indeed, no lectures this week. Last week they were not that interesting I thought, and now comes Easter, so no lectures until next Wednesday..

The idea is to make a portrait of a number of international students including photos from their ‘home’ “back home” and the home they created here. Their own portrait – face – as a bridge between these two environments.

Together with Nikki, I was invited to join this project as interaction designer. Yesterday we had the first meeting over a fika in the student restaurant Kåren. Apart from Hubert ans us there were four others, of which one photographer. The rest I hope to get to know better in their roles here (I know some from the hiking); for the next meeting we planned to see what we came up and to devide the (flexible) tasks based on that :)

One of the ideas from this first brainstorm was from beauty product commercials enlarging a wrinkel on a persons skin and displaying facts about that part. The idea is to encircle the wrinkels in the students faces – as experiences in their lives, moments they laughed and cried – and to link these to the photographs around.

I really like the creative mood this whole projects gets me in again. The courses mainly got me in a philosophical mood. I miss the moments with Roy (a classmate from HKU) in which we just tried weird experiments without any direct goal. I got the feeling that these moments came from all the creative projects at HKU.

Eldflugor och Odågor (picture from eldflugor.se)

There was a concert last Sunday were I went with Frida. It was from 6 girls, Google Translate said they called themselves Firefox and Waster (Eldflugor och Odågor), singing songs, mostly a cappella, some with addition of drums.

Most of the songs were in Swedish so I didn’t understand the words, but I could understand the feeling sometimes. A bit like Evelyn Glennie showed on TED.

It also was a great place there, good atmosphere. I think it was a living and working community (is that a correct term in English?). And there was a ecological shop in this building, finally with really good goods. Too bad it is in Uppsala which costs about €30,- to travel to..

It was great to travel this whole day. Although not as far as Nikki is traveling, I finally see some other places then only Eskilstuna and Västerås. And also that the good day is more than the goal your going to (the concert), it is also the travel, the things you see, the talks you have, what you think about..

On the way back there was this flyer on the streets of Uppsala. Some flyer from the International Womans Day. On the front it had a quote:

“Det är tur att vi finns, men det är en skam att vi behövs!”

I, apparently with my cultural background, read something like ‘man are scum and we behave’. Ohoh, don’t read that! Too late :) Not, it was more something like ‘it is good that we exist, but a shame that we are needed!’, about the womans organization behind this flyer.

I found a nice little park next to the supermarket – the Hemköp seen in the middle. I sat on a rock there, with this view. Good place to think, overview of the city.

I’ve been photographing a lot lately. I’ve also not been photographing a lot, just experiencing the environment. But both serve their goal. Photographing helps me to get another view on things. By trying different ways to capture a space I learn the different aspects of the space as well.

And I’m making new stereograms here. Thanks again Ivo for pointing me at this way back :) It is a trick to photograph an object which can been seen in 3D again pretty easy afterwards. See the picture below. The trick to see 3D here is to ‘cross your eyes’ to look at a non-existing point in front of the real image. Focus until you’ve got both grey circles to join eachother in the middle, then look at the image.

See more Swedish stereograms from the nature of Eskilstuna :)

Nikki helpt with following the IKEA manuals and creating a bed, table, chairs and a closet out of the seperate parts. Now I also now a little bit more what Your van ‘t Hek (a Dutch cabaretier?) ment with getting the IKEA slatted bed base (lattenbodem) together.

The room doesn’t have that ‘I just arrived here’ look anymore. The blankets on the ground are now replaced with a real bed. I put some of the stuff from my suitcases in the closet and in boxes.

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Most -offline- reactions I get are about the blog being in English :) I do that mainly because I want to document my experiences for a broader public. Not only my Dutch friends, but also the non-Dutch and other people who stumble upon this blog. I also found another blog a few weeks ago from a Dutch guy who also went on exchange to Mälardalen university here. So I write in English to tell my experiences from the university, from the course context and from the country, to more then only my friends.

Further I hope to develop my English writing in this way. I’m also translating parts while writing in English because I don’t know them yet. And a last thing, as soon as I enter another country, I start not only to use English to speak, but also to think. Then the same applies to my writings, as I already think of things to say, in English.

Eskilstuna is a nice small city, the same size as Alkmaar, but with two third of the people. Lots of parks.You see litter (the bedding material for cats) on the streets everywhere, to stop you from slipping away on the ice. Oh, and they love red neon lights here.

I’ve joined Nikki in his apartment as the appointment I had with the rental unit didn’t work out, so I’ll have to wait until Monday (måndag) untill I have access to my apartment (Jong MenS: I drew Lady Lobelie afterwards). The apartment looks pretty good – from the outside anyway. We’ve done some shopping, I still have to find a good place for ecological and vegetarian food.

Saturday (Lördag) we went to Västerås, somewhat larger than Eskilstuna. More something like Nijmegen, again, with about two third of its population. First to the IKEA of course :) Afterwards we went to the student reception at Mälardalen in Västerås. The school building is very nice, with a lot of wood and nice lanterns, also made of wood. A show of their image as a environmentally consciousness university?

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This Sunday (söndag) was an easy day, we’re planing to go to the university (with a card from another student) to do some internet work (Jong MenS: I drew Lazuli for this day).

I did some shopping and had another walk through the city. I tried to get a bike. But although almost every shop is open on Sunday, the bike shop wasn’t. We’ll try it next week.

Then we got a household from Nikki to get us inside the university. I did some online IKEA shopping, checked my school scheme, and got to blog my first posts from Sweden.