Jesper Waldersten

2019

- It’s about finding the box where everything fits. Where idea, execution, objective and chaos align. Bang! Magic! Says Jesper Waldersten, the artist behind the official poster for Göteborg Film Festival 2019.

Göteborg Film Festival 2019 has the near apocalypse as its main focus. It is also the apocalypse that has driven Jesper Waldersten in his creation of next year’s festival poster.
- It’s a flirt with classic horror and space film from my childhood. Alien, David Lynch and Carpenter, with this unpleasant stagnant horror. Then I think of Bergman. Because there is probably a seal in it too.

With his darkness, humour and spare lines, Waldersten has become one of Sweden’s most popular artists. He has many international awards behind him and has collaborated with artists like Ane Brun, Kent and Madonna and published about thirteen books. Waldersten has also made record covers and illustrated books, most recently, a new edition of The Brothers Lionheart, which also resulted in a separate exhibition at Kulturhuset i Stockholm.

Göteborg Film Festival’s Artistic Director Jonas Holmberg is greatful for Waldersten’s contribution to the poster.
- Jesper Waldersten has a unique ability to capture the darkness and find the emotional source in people and experiences. This year’s poster is both intimidating and very beautiful, and adds a new, interesting layer to the festival’s work with the apocalypse, says Jonas Holmberg.

Waldersten mainly works with photography. Documentations of the original work. He throws the originals, but keep the photographs as a proof that they once existed.
- My image is not very positive, one would think. But in the darkness there is also something playful and light. It’s an image of doom that is both cinematic and inward-looking. I usually say that we need to become better at looking inwards instead of ahead.

Jesper Waldersten, born 1969, was in the festival’s spotlight already last year when he, together with the director Thomas Alfredson, screened the short film Bergman’s Reliquarium, as part of the theme Bergman Revisisted. In mars 2019, he will have his own major exhibition at Fotografiska in Stockholm.