Ingeborg
2025
A geographical coincidence links an historical mulberry plantation for silk production with a testemony in the Visby Witchtrials (1705-1707). It all begins with Ingeborg Jonsdotter being accused for practicing cures. She is imprisoned and tortured until she confesses that she has been to the underworld, where she learned to cure with herbs and chants. With the help of threads and knots, Ingeborg measures diseases and deciphers their origin. She hangs a green silk thread tied to a bone from goose around a sick person’s neck to cure convulsions. The site where she is taken to the underworld is Slottsbetningen in Visby, an area which 150 years later was transformed into a mulberry plantation. Since the start of the Morus project, the trees in Slottsbetningen have been the main providers of leaves for Hanna Norrnas' silkworms. In her weaving, she uses pomegranate dye for green colour and for reference to the Greek myth of Persephone - captured in the underworld, when tricked by Hades to eat pomegranate seeds.
Installation view from the exhibition Morus at Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg 2025