Page 24 - endeavour-annfrossen

Michael Winiarski

As long as I can remember a constant theme of Ann Frössén’s art has been water
and the seas. But her creative work really centres on people even though they do
not actually appear in her pictures of waves and white water.
She laid the foundations of her visual imagery when attending the Academy of
Fine Arts in Warsaw some thirty years ago. Warsaw is far from the sea and she spent
her afternoons drawing from live models, many of whom had previously earned
their living through prostitution.
This was during the dark cold-war days of the years 1986-1987 when the Communist
generals were the unthreatened rulers of Poland. But this very different, adventurous
and disquieting existence laid the foundations of her creative work; an artistic
career that finds its starting point in the sea. The life-giving and life-threatening
sea, the sea that connects and that separates, the sea that breeds hope but that is
also treacherous; for Ann Frössén the sea is not fundamentally a metaphor.
Her thoughts are really of entirely concrete notions. Principally, perhaps, the importance
of seas and the oceans to our survival during a time of climate change, melting
icecaps, violent shifts in the weather, deadly tsunamis and what goes quietly on
beneath the turbulent surface of the water in terms of pollution and overfishing.
To this must be added the tragic developments in the Mediterranean which have
taken the lives of innumerable people fleeing from wars and from terror to the
south and east of Europe.
Mass deaths at sea are nothing new in history. During the 19th century millions
of European emigrants and African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean
often in unsuitable vessels. Many of them died during the voyage.
During the first half of the year 2016 alone more than 3’000 refugees drowned
while crossing the Mediterranean; even more than in the same period of the previous
year. One reason for this is the closure of the land crossing via the Balkans following
political decisions made in answer to populist right-wing demagogues in Europe.
In country after country humanitarian concerns have been abandoned and
“migrants” have been classed as security risks. In front of our own eyes we have
witnessed how human life has been devalued, a crushing experience for many
people. “If I could live my life again I would devote it to saving people on the high
seas”, Ann Frössén claims.
In the meantime we can consider her art as a contribution to a more profound
understanding of the oceans and their importance to us.

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