After seeing a show of contemporary art at Scandinavia House last summer I was disappointed to come away without a better idea of what Scandinavia is. What I conjured about the place continued to be based on various random associations: long winters, virgin forests, Bjorn Borg, the Villa Mareia, Aga stoves, the movies of Ingmar Bergman, and the magnificent, misanthropic, coffee- and alcohol-swilling character of Kurt Wallander. This fantasy of Scandinavia was predominantly Swedish. If one image prevailed, it was the views of Faro at the end of each episode of Scenes from a Marriage, which show a lyrical, desolate island landscape. The panoramas offer a stripped-down beauty that refreshed after the heated, tangled emotions of the narrative. (There’s a good account of Bergman’s life in Faro in this spread from W Magazine.)
Then last month I set off for Scandinavia – the real place, that is – still wanting to know what Scandinavia was. I accepted the platitudes that it was an orderly culture within a powerful landscape, whose peoples valued socialist politics, good design, and healthy living. Now, after I’ve returned, I might agree that there is no single, uncomplicated Scandinavia. Nonetheless what I saw left me with a tangle of new impressions, which follow here.