HALF FULL BABES MIX
Vård och Värde & With tired backs,
and hearts with room for more 

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About
For the second edition of the newspaper Vård och Värde and the exhibition With tired backs, and hearts with room for more at Kalmar Konstmuseum Mourning School presents a mixtape that strings together fragments of gathered sound, voice and music that relate to questions of ageing, death, end of life and mourning, hospice and care work. Entitled HALF FULL BABES - MIX, the tape is described by Mourning School as a sonic footnote to the work HALF FULL BABES by visual artist G, which is made in dedication to care workers and can be found on the front cover of the Vård och Värde #2 newspaper.

In a dreamlike world we travel from Ronja Rövardotter’s mother who reminds us we are all born and will all die to the complexities of carework in the 1980s international HIV/AIDS crisis, through the voices of David Wojnarowicz, Steve Sjöquist and Kerttu Sturesson, amongst others. Anne Boyer describes caring for a sick woman as caring for arms, Christine Bylund critiques the bureaucratic system that saves lives when they begin but doesn’t sustain them as they live on. All of this and more, set against a backdrop of music composed by dolphins in heaven. Full track list below the Swedish text.

Om
Mourning School presenterar ytterligare ett av sina konversations stycken, den här gången i form av ett blandband som syr samman  fragment av samlade ljud, röster och musik om åldrande, död, livets  slutskede, sorg, hospis och vårdarbete. Verket heter Half Full Babes –  Mix och beskrivs av Mourning School som en sonisk fotnot till verket Half Full Babes av konstnären G som dedikerades till vårdarbetare och som pryder omslaget till tidningen Vård och Värde #2. 

I en drömlik värld rör vi oss från Ronja Rövardotters mamma, som påminner oss om att vi alla föds och dör, till komplexiteten i vårdarbetet  under 1980-talets internationella HIV- och AIDS-kris, via bland andra  David Wojnarowicz, Steve Sjöquist och Kerttu Sturessons röster.  Anne Boyer beskriver hur att vårda en sjuk kvinna är som att vårda ett  vapen, Christine Bylund kritiserar ett byråkratiskt system som räddar  liv när det börjar men inte upprätthåller detta under livets gång. Allt  detta och mer är satt mot en bakgrund av musik som komponerats av  Dolphins in Heaven. 

Tracklist 
1. dolphins in heaven, Mercury in Retrograde
2. Lovis in Ronja Rövardotter, 1984
3. Leif Kananen (älderomsorgschef) in I livets slutskede, 2016
4. Crying baby (sample, author unknown)
5. Female voice whispering ‘wake up’ (sample by lady imperatrix)
6. Trinh T Minh-ha, Reassemblage, 1982
7. bell hooks in conversation with Laverne Cox at the New School, 2014
8. Steve Sjöquist in Den längste resan, är resan inåt - Filmen om Steve by Staffan Hildebrand, 2005 (Retrieved from the Face of AIDS Film Archive)
9. Ann Boyer, Is Also A Loaded Gun (excerpt), 2015
10. Marja Fihman (anhörig) in I livets slutskede, 2016
11. dolphins in heaven - Memorial
12. Trinh T Minh-ha, Reassemblage, 1982
13. Christine Bylund, Att Andas Eld, 2020
14. Audre Lorde, Litany for Survival: the life and work of Audre Lorde by Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson, 1995
15. Bröderna Lejonhjärta, opening, 1977
16. Seanna McKanna in The Year of Magical Thinking based on the book by Joan Didion, 2009
17. Kerttu Sturesson in Smittad, 2012
18. Ann Cvetkovich in The Alphabet of Feeling Bad by Karin Michalski, 2012
19. dolphins in heaven - for marcia
20. various hospital sounds (samples, authors unknown)
21. Leif Kananen (äldreomsorgschef) in I livets slutskede, 2016
22. David Wojnarowicz in Bust by Richard Morrisson, 1991
23. Maya Angelou, Still I Rise (excerpt), 1978
24. Krister Pettersson in Smittad, 2012

Colophon
We would like to extend our grattitude to Jenny Richards and Ulrika Flink for their invitation and care, to Jonas Holmer (dolphins in heaven) for allowing us to use his music, to G for their trust and stunning art work, to Arash Pandi for their work on the final mix, to Louise Khadjeh-Nassiri for the design of the newspaper, and to David Sriwanat for English-Swedish translation support. 

This mixtape was made in response and relation to the drawing HALF FULL BABES by G, 2021 for the second issue of the newspaper Vård och Värde. The mix will also be presented in the exhibition With tired backs, and hearts with room for more at Kalmar Konstmuseum between 9 February and 17 April 2022. 

Vård och Värde is a collective project made by care and cultural workers in collaboration with the art spaces Konsthall C, MINT and Kalmar Konstmuseum and supported by Kulturbryggan.

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