Ami Bergman, Peter Wallström: The mermaid and the outer point of no return

Scientists today argue that the universe is expanding in a single plane. Or that it has such flat bending that it is impossible to notice or understand its curve, not even if we would travel immensely many lightyears forward in the same direction. Around on earth we circulate, bound to our bodies, held to the ground by gravity.

In the depths of the sea and in the infinity of space gravity is temporarily disbanded and our bodies float. Staring into the abyss of the sea is a similar feeling to looking up towards the starry sky, the feeling of facing something immense and uncertain on the verge of the incomprehensible. Scales shift. Thought floats freely. Time and space dissolves, as well as our own perception of ourselves and how we function. The gaze turns inwards and looks out into the infinite at the same time. A shared feeling of not wanting to be merely a body or be defined as one. A longing to be able to leave it, if only temporarily, to become weightless and free.

In Ami Bergman’s and Peter Wallström’s painting we are faced with a different kind of weightlessness and condensation. Here the twisted becomes a possible free zone where the idea of a reality beyond the current is nourished. A breaking point and a longing away from the obvious to finally land in the humble realisation that something can remain inexplicable and still exist. Even in times of great uncertainty we must remember what freedom is.