A MAP AND A COMPASS: SNICKARGLÄDJE FOR SMÅLAND

Sonya Blesofsky’s works use cycles of history and historical narratives to consider how we relate—personally and collectively—to the built environment. Her works cut open a given architecture, revealing how space is designed, built, and inhabited, as a way to uncover the overlooked history of places.

This piece takes the original wallpaper of Södra Karstorp missionshus in combination with the language of snickarglädje: the decorative trim and latticework used to adorn houses in rural Sweden. This white trim can be seen on houses and buildings painted in the traditional Falu Red paint; the red house with white trim as an indelible image of rural life. In Swedish, the term snickarglädje translates to “carpenter’s joy,” a description of the process the carpenter or woodworker engages in while making this wood trim. Typically snickarglädje is handmade and unique, making the woodworker’s home not only beautiful, but individual.

The snickarglädje adorning SKK’s poster box is factory-produced, a facsimile of something handmade and unique. A Map and A Compass: Snickarglädje for Småland gives us a romanticised version of the poster box. A poster box that is more folk and more fitting for its rural site, advertising a cultural moment that is nostalgic for a past that never was.