How are we touched by the world?

By a voice. A breath. Another body. A sound from the room. Something we long for without quite knowing what it is.

Ester Bergsmark’s work encompasses experiences of violence, vulnerability, and the body’s defenses. Yet the body is also something more than what has happened to it; it is sensuous, ever-changing, and open to the world.

The meditation moves through attention, desire, and sensation. Through the breath, bodily sensations, and awareness of the space, it explores what it means to be touched by—and to touch—the world. Not to reach a specific state or to gain a better understanding, but to dwell in sensuality, curiosity, and that which has not yet taken shape.

It also embraces the idea of desire as something greater than a clear object or goal: a life force, a direction, an erotic intimacy with the unknown.

There is no specific state to achieve here, nor an answer to arrive at. Instead, meditation is an invitation to remain curious—open to sensations, to others, and to the unknown.

Perhaps desire can be understood in this way, too: not as something requiring a goal, but as a movement toward the world. An erotic intimacy with the unknown.

During Cinema Queer, Ester Bergsmark presents a site-specific installation and leads a collective meditation on one of the festival evenings.

The meditation and the site-specific work are part of the launch of Ester Bergsmark’s latest film, En ljuvlighet från ingenstans (A Loveliness from Nowhere), which opens in cinemas on October 1. Read more about the film and find screenings at folketsbio.se/en-ljuvlighet.

Unlike the premiere: the after-party is open to everyone! Even for you with no festival pass and ticket! After the cinema premiere of Ester Bergsmark’s film A Sweetness from Nowhere, cinemagoers will together travel to the Kulturhuset Hartwig to celebrate together. During the evening, Tomas and Zafira Woodski will have an outdoor performance titled Adiosa FlipFlop Service. See you there!