Carolina is a Malmö based artist who’s practice also makes her a filmmaker, director, photographer, sculptor, and the list could go on as she herself is responsible for almost all parts necessary to make these cinematic pieces come alive. In Hemsökelser we are offered a truly generous peek into Carolina Sandvik’s practice as she not only presents her most recent film The Lovers, which was nominated for a Guldbagge Award this year, but also presents an informative look at older works, miniature sets and hand made props and models from her productions.

Through the use of stop-motion animation as a medium Sandvik builds worlds and narratives that can be seen as grotesque reflections of domestic and everyday life. While often taking place within the walls of the home, Sandvik’s stories are draped in complex ambiguities where the seemingly ordinary lives of her characters soon start to break down — together with the comforting divisions between the external/internal and objective/subjective. At their core her films often hold something truly personal, sprung from fantasies, nightmares and anecdotes, while the framing structure uses visual and narrative tropes coming from genre and horror films. It’s a narrative space riddled with neurosis and psychosis that easily makes one think of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion from 1965, or the dream logic of a Maya Deren film. But at the same time, while these dramatic gestures and horror imagery are used to depict the mundane and the subtle, the boundless nature of animation allows for the repulsive to beexaggerated until it becomes truly comical. As Carolina herself puts it: ”The purpose of horror film is to evoke strong reactions in its audience; shock effects, disgust or psychological terror. There is a sadomasochist pleasure in indulging in a horrifying scenario, and the horror viewer can oscillate between identification with and objectification of the on-screen characters.

Horror enables a complexity which I find absolutely necessary when making or watching a film. There is a conflict between the urge to look and the impulse to look away. Film in general, and horror in particular, is voyeuristic by nature. The horror genre doesn’t attempt to conceal this fact, and that’s why I find it a particularly sympathetic genre.”