Jacob Erixson, Sweden
Vär Er! 2026, 2026, linocut print on 120 g Fabriano paper, found object, oak, linoleum
“Often she had left this suitcase in a street corner, on a platform, and when she had moved on there were the words Värj er to be read. A few small words, quickly erased, which appeared again on other stones. Once she had hurried through the streets all night carrying the suitcase (…) Värj er, she had stamped onto the pavement, had blackened the stamp again and again, had left behind this trace of Värj er in the city, barely looking back anymore, as if she wished to be arrested.”
— The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume 3, Peter Weiss, 1976–81.
The work borrows its title from the two words stamped onto the streets of Berlin by the German resistance fighter Charlotte Bischoff in Peter Weiss’s novel The Aesthetics of Resistance. It refers to a desperate act intended to make someone stop and awaken from their sleep, to defend themselves against madness and to resist. Värj Er is a performative gesture, a bodily act carried out by a precarious body in order to reclaim a space, even if only for a moment before it is erased. To borrow Judith Butler’s words, actions such as this mobilize the space itself, calling upon the sidewalks and animating and organizing the architecture. How do we defend ourselves against the fascism, exploitation, and extractive forces of our present time? Värj Er is the echo of a future past.
The prints are remnants of a performance work presented at Hallstavik Folkets Hus in spring 2026.
Seize the Means of Recreation 2025, letterpress print on 300 g Munken paper
The work paraphrases the Marxist slogan concerning the necessity for the working class to reclaim the means of production. However, through merely reclaiming the material resources for the production of goods, we create only the conditions for a half-lived life tied to labour. To create a whole and livable life beyond precarity, it is also necessary to reclaim the infrastructures of everyday life: the spaces for recreation, recovery, culture, and education. The work asks how we create emancipatory spaces and what a collective organization around the means and production of leisure could look like in order to create an outside to today’s neoliberal social order. Storm a spa facility, occupy your nearest padel court!
The work was printed together with Helén Edling and Annika Thörn Legzdins at Grafikverkstan Godsmagasinet in Uttersberg. It has previously been shown in the exhibition Tusen Kulturhus at Konstfrämjandet Västmanland in Norberg.
Jacob Erixson, born 1986 in Uppsala, Sweden. Educated at Konstfack, the Royal College of Art, London, and the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Email: jacob.erixson@gmail.com
Värj Er! (The larger lino cut prints) Seize the Means of Recreation, Letter press print,
