STRUGGLING WITH PLEASURE is a documentary exhibition about the queer-activist movement in Gothenburg Sweden between 2003-2008. Zafira Vrba Woodski and Mats Råsmark collected photos, videos, flyers, posters and artwork from friends, lovers, collectives and from their own projects. They then curated Struggling with Pleasure that has toured extensively in Sweden and later in Denmark, Romania, Poland, Israel and USA.
Text from the exhibition catalogue:
”We are not keeping silent. We’re showing the world the colorful queer-activist community in Gothenburg, Sweden. People struggling and enjoying themselves, seeking pleasurable transformations of society, knowing that real change never comes easy, and that there will be innumerable parties until we can finally rest. Struggling with pleasure means struggling in our daily lives, finding joy and pleasure in the company of our friends, in breaking boundaries and exceeding our limitations. It means finding new ways to fight for our human right to happiness. It means refusing boredom and business as usual and re-creating the world in a loud cry for love, ecstasy and thoughtfulness, all things pleasurable. With the greatest pleasure we are undermining seriousness, law and order, security, invariance, boredom and gloom, and we are overthrowing constraints in the most joyful ways. We are seeking love and finding ourselves. Our exhibition aims to picture the very pleasurable grass-roots queer activist environment we are a part of, and it heavily depends on contributions from all our friends and lovers. We have tried to document as much as possible – groups, events and activists and we hope that you, our dear Viewer/Co-creator, will find amusement, excitement and inspiration in our work. For all people Struggling with pleasure.
An online version of the exhibition can be seen here: http://strugglingwithpleasure.kamplust.se/
Below is a selection of photos.
Zafira Vrba Woodski 