Risen from the ruins

Risen from the Ruins, 2022
Single-channel color video, sound, 21 min

Narratives preserved and transmitted across generations within families who have experienced displacement often revolve around specific memories or objects from the past. Johanson explores the agency of these objects, and the new values and meanings they can evoke in contemporary life.

For many years, Johansson has dedicated her research to the history of itinerary glass objects, displacement, and the transfer of knowledge among Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), Germany, and Sweden. This exploration seeks to highlight the notion that what is commonly perceived as local may not necessarily possess a uniquely local or national identity.

In her film, through an interview with Annmarie Vlks on antifascist-resettlement cooperatives from Bohemia, Johansson illuminates the experiences of the descendants of nearly 4,000 anti-fascists who were forcibly expelled to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) following World War II. She also depicts the establishment of a new small cooperative that these individuals built to initiate a fresh start, and which subsequently became one of the largest, nationalized, factories of Bohemian jewelry in GDR. A significant number of them were former jewelers and craftsmen, carrying with them invaluable knowledge of various techniques that facilitated their self-organization in unfamiliar territories. Through her work, Johansson narrates the stories of those who once had homes but lost them due to their political convictions, intertwining these personal narratives with broader political and economic histories, symbolized through fragments of glass and jewelry.