Kajsa Dahlberg: A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries

A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries (2006), a book project sharing the same name as the exhibition, is a compilation of marginal notes made by readers in the library editions of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, which was first published by Hogarth Press in 1929. The data compiled in the Dahlberg version of Woolf’s text derives from books borrowed by the artist in public libraries all over Sweden. Each page of the original book has – from out of a large number of the different library books – been manually copied into a facsimile.

The exhibition also features 20 mins (Female Fist), 2005, a video that similar to A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries, thematises and investigates the right to define oneself. Furthermore, the video shows a resistance to be defined by what is considered being a repressive culture. In an interview, a female activist tells about a pornographic film project, made by women only and aimed at women exclusively. Since there is a strategic value for the protagonist to remain anonymous, the artist has consciously filmed the interview with the camera’s lens cap on.

Kajsa Dahlberg is educated at Malmö Art Academy 1998–2003, and she studied at School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago UIC, in 2001–2002.

Index wishes to express our gratitude to Momentum 2006, 4th Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art who in collaboration with Index has co-produced the book project A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries. Index is indebted to Otto Degerman for, together with Kajsa Dahlberg, designing the book. Finally, Index is grateful to the Arts Grants Committee who has contributed financially to the book project, and to its participation in Momentum 2006.