© Elisabeth Westerlund

The first time I saw a work by Elisabeth Westerlund was in 1993 at an apartment in Södermalm, Stockholm. The apartment, belonging to the estate of a deceased person with all its furniture removed, had been turned into an exhibition space for one weekend by the art journal "Material". Using paper clips, macaroni, forks and other ordinary things that we all have at home, Elisabeth Westerlund had built a scale model of the Versailles gardens on the floor.

Scale and structure are often used by Elisabeth Westerlund in her installations. "I think that you can use scale in order to say something. It gives a new perspective. The relationships are altered. And then there is this thing about structures...I like town plans and new perspectives," says Elisabeth in our interview, of which a printout is available in conjunction with the exhibition. "Without some kind of structure, it would be impossible to understand what is around you. I´m thinking of some petty clerk trying to gain control. A middle-aged man perhaps, building a model railway. The small people. A lot of my work is about the power / powerlessness relationship."

Elisabeth Westerlund is showing completely new work at Index. And once again the theme is the big versus the small and about creating order in an attempt to make it easier to understand reality. With the assistance of Laura Ashley´s classic flower wallpaper, Elisabeth sets about putting some organisation into nature. An impossible project? That´s for you to decide.

Karina Ericsson Wärn