Princess diva's sleep and unease

Princess divapower finally got a good night's sleep in a queen size bed in a room of her own. Not that she minded staying at Jooyoung's, not at all - she actually really miss the nightly talks - but she really enjoys to sleep in a real bed with a mattress. Now that she has slept well and feel really good, she also experience another feeling: mega guilt.

I'm beginning to see the "strategies" of Jan over here even more clearly. Yesterday I was joking with him that he should have started the "breaking down of my diva princess attitude" and sense of individuality more lightly instead of pushing me into the completely, totally, democratic bath-house-sleep-arrangement from day one; I meant that if he had arranged a slow downfall in arrangements from the early beginning with a "five class hotel day one, a four star hotel day two, three star day three" etc towards the Jimjilbang which of course is not a hotel at all I would have had a smoother transition and maybe had more time to adjust which would have made things easier to handle. He, on the other side, laughingly replied that he thought it was so much better to change from the Jinjilbang to a five class arrangement so that I really would appreciate the luxury so much more.

The result?

I'm most likely turning into a full blown Marxist-communist.

Erlend is in the same boat as myself since he is in the other room in this resort. He's talking about time-share of his room unlike me. I'm far more egoistical and would like to keep the bed the few nights I have it for my disposal (so I'm not yet full blown communist) but I am however more than willing to share the huge bed with Jan or Bjørn, or hell, even both if they would wish (for the record, I am now talking about sharing the bed, not anything else). I'm afraid that the guys are too tactful and won't take up on the offer though, so here I am, in a beautiful house and a wonderful big bed, alone in a room, wirelessly connected and with a magnificent view plus a huge balcony facing the view - this is something I would have loved normally and would have enjoyed totally and felt like it was completely something I "deserved" (think L'oreal) but - now, all I can feel is guilt.














But like I told you, I am not yet able to deal with the consequences of being a convinced commy all the way and therefore not yet ready to move back into the pink uniform shorts-jinjilbang, but I cannot but to be amazed about the smartness of Jan's strategy. He is in a way building a "powerless structure" (no pun intended with myself, pun intended about Elmdrags') in this project. Who has the power in the project? Not the artists participating. Not the curators. There is no gallery owner wanting to sell works, no inherent structure in the space in itself, no curator's strategy or concept, no money involved... I'm always advocating that there are no powerless structures and trying to invent such a situation has a power hierarchy inherent in itself (why I am digesting Lefebvre at the moment) etc, but by placing me and Erlend in this beautiful home while staying himself together with the other artist in this project in the white uniform-shorts at the jinjilbang Jan has made somewhat a decision about the two of us being in another position to be able to go into this residency, why we are not in a "higher rank" or anything of course, but it is a clear decision and choice of distribution of means and funds. I guess the booming economy of Seoul's with its history and closeness to North Korea is a great spot to be considering these things. Especially since I have the Swedish passport representing the land of "lagom" or "witheld sufficiency" which could translate to flat (in both aspects) social democratic boringness.

I am partly exaggerating and am deliberately pushing things to its limit here of course, bear that in mind while reading my qualms. But still. I'm chewing on this, but not yet ready to swallow. I'm not easy about things, not at all, not even when I'm rewarded a bed of my own. A bitchy princess on peas.















The project space's wall behind Bjørn's desk















Excerpt from the wall with Jan's preliminary poster for the project to the right, and another poster about the so called "middle way" of Sweden to the left