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the video-installation
Ananda - Happiness - Lycka

BildMuséet Umea & Wetterling Gallery Stockholm, May 2002

2001 I received Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse's grant
to go to India and attend dr Kataria's School of
Laughter Yoga
, in Mumbai, whioch I did in November 2001.

My descoveries there and in the rest of India and from the
Indian population in Singapore, areexhibited as a video-installation in my master degree-exhibition from the academy of Fine Arts, Umeå university.

On BildMuséet, Umeå the installation was situated in a 77 sqm large space, where I could make use of also the senses of smell and hearing, thus that incense was burned and that the sounds have gotten the spaces they craved, while there were also seats to encourage dwelling on the meditative sense of the installation. On Wetterling the space was
limited to one monitor with headphones .

 

On a "back-projection"-screan hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room a video-projection shows a video from the Ganges, intertwined with double-projections from laughter-sessions in Mumbai. Dr Madan Kataria tells about the philosophy, techniques and all the advantages of laughter-yoga, while the laughters are demonstrated at the screan and also as c:a 2.5 m wide projections onto
two walls, facing each other in the opposite direction to the screan.

 

Later on the Diwali-celebrations from an ashram in Maharashtra, India are also double-projected on the screan. Diwali is celebrated by all Indians, never mind their religions and it is a feast of lights for Lakshmi, the goddess of happiness. A Hindi-priest tells about his annual fire-walking for happiness, which is an ancient Indian custom. Occasionally scenes from the laughter-clubs return and dr Kataria
tells about the medical profits thatlaughter can bring.

Ananda - Happiness - Lycka
Östersund, 2004
Photos by Marielle Nylander and stills from the video-
installation.

© MalinMatilda Allberg 2002