Ika Schwander

And they were such beautiful, sweet girls. Such delicate little dragonflies. What is left of them now?

I once lay on a tapestry and realized she wasn’t that different from me. It must have been a young, inexperienced tapestry maker who built my body, a trial piece, something meant for practice, something that should have gone into the bin. If only they had checked more carefully, they would have known I wasn’t meant to be alive. I must have been the practice piece for girls, for boys, for things not meant to live yet, for practicing how to one day build something livable.

Ika Schwander is a French-Dutch artist, director, and performer working across film, performance, installation, and drawing. Her practice blends fiction, non-fiction, digital mythologies, and themes of illness and healing to explore the contradictions, pressures, and transformations experienced by a body in crisis. 

Sound collaborator: Mitzi Beesemer

@ikaschwander