Emily Seppelt – Staff Writer

This year marks the return of the week long Out of Scandinavia Artist-in Residence-program sponsored by the Scandinavian Studies department. This years guest is writer and filmmaker Lawen Mohtadi. Mohtadi is most well known for her biography of Roma civil rights activist Katarina Taikon and the subsequent documentary Taikon: The Untold Story of a Roma Freedom Fighter. Mohati immersed herself in the Gustavus campus and culture from October 15-21. At the start of the week, staff writer Emily Seppelt sat down with Mohati in the Swedish House and conducted an exclusive interview for the Weekly.
This visit has been postponed since March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you feel that your approach to the residency has changed since then, and if so, is this due to the events of the past 1.5 years?
“It is changed in the way that I appreciate it more now. Because of the isolation of COVID. It also sort of gives me the chance to see things with new eyes a little bit. So I’m just happy to be in a place where I can engage with people again and we can exchange things. I get to talk about something that I really care about.”
What are your goals, intentions, hopes, etc. for this week on our campus?
“To get a sense of what it’s like to live here and study here. I am mostly interested in students. For me, coming from Sweden, it is a pretty small country, it’s a small language, so to me I am really interested in what does Sweden mean for people outside of Sweden, and especially here in Minnesota? That is a conversation that I am really curious about. There is so much great literature, culture from Sweden- it fun to talk about that and to hear what the students, what they care about when it comes to Sweden. My goal is to immerse myself as much as I can, just go to events and talk to people. I am eager to hear about , as I share my work on Katarina Taikon, to also hear about how that resonates with people here.”
So far, what is your impression of Gustavus? “
We grow up with a lot of American culture , so to us that’s also something that feels both exotic but also somehow familar. It was a little bit like the movies. But I think, you know being here, what I really can sense is that the students here are really engaged. That’s the only word I can use. In their whole existence here. The studies, the activities, and then also the sense of community. I really like that. I think that that is something that we’re not as good at in Sweden as you guys are. That community is important, you know, when you are in place, you share with other people. So, relationships are important. I would have loved to have had that college or university experience.”
The Gustavus Arboretum was recently stripped of its former name, Linnaeus Arboretum. What is your perspective, as a Swede, of the controversy around the dedication of public spaces to racist people in history? Especially because Linneaus in such a Swedish icon.
“Yes, absolutely. And from my hometown! What happens when we start investigating historical figures, is that yes, we’re going to discover that very central scientists and people who put forward really important ideas also contributed to what we would call scientific racism. Those figures were never in the margins- they were at the center of the institutions that produce knowledge. As somebody who has looked a lot at the Swedish 20th century, you come to a point where you have to try and look at the way that we have told certain stories. And look at them with a critical eye and confront that. And so I’m not surprised that somebody like Carolus Linnaeus is being confronted in this way. To me, he is an example of something that we are going to probably wrestle with for the next 100 years.”
What inspired you to write about Taikon, and later to make a film about her?
“I had this encounter where I saw an image of her. It was a very striking image and made me interested about ‘who is she?’ and ‘what’s going on?’. It led me to try and find out more about her, and as I tried to do that I discovered there is nothing written about her. That was the beginning of me wanting to know more about Katarina Taikon. One thing led to another, I met her older sister, Rosa Taikon. My first meeting with Rosa was absolutely eye-opening to me. I just thought this has to become larger story. That’s how the idea for the book was born. Since then I have been working on her legacy.”
As a Swedish American institution, what can Gustavus learn from Taikon’s work and legacy?
“Hopefully add nuance to the often-told success story that Sweden is abroad. I think what Katarina Taikon shows through her work is that, while Sweden was becoming one of the most egalitarian societies in the world, the most modern country, there was also this other thing that was going on. There was institutional discrimination against certain people in society. I think that is important for understanding the dynamics of Swedish society. That part to me is important.”
Is there anything you’d like to say to the Gustavus community as a whole?
“I am sure by the end of the visit that I am going to feel so inspired by so many really engaged students. And then also- it is really fun for me to see that there is an interest in Swedish culture. That is one of my main interests in life. That gives me the feeling that what we {Swedes} do also matters in other places.”