Summer Thoughts is a long-term research project that originated in an invitation from A Prior Magazine to react to dOCUMENTA 13 (Kassel,
2012). Inspired by the tapestries of Norwegian artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970), Sven Augustijnen responded in the form of a letter to curator
Marta Kuzma.

The series of letters spanning the period from 2012 until today, along with newspapers, photographs, books, and other archival materials, bring
together temporalities, personalities, and topographies. They constitute a layered network of references, associations, personal experiences, cultural occurrences, and political events happening in the time of writing. Summer Thoughts questions the present state of crisis in Europe as not merely an economic or political one, but as a moral and cultural challenge marked by the twisted meaning of democracy and freedom, personal responsibility, and, as a consequence, fertile ground for the resurgence of
far-right movements. Although the first letter started from an invitation, the writing of the letters became in the period of 6 years an urgency, an exercise to understand and an act to resist the rise of fascism amongst us.
In the coming year specific researches will be done in archives (and museums) across Europe, that will be the fertile ground for the letters to be written, culminating in their publication and the exhibition(s) of the constituted archives that go along.
Research will be done on the following subjects:
- The tapestries of Hannah Ryggen and more specifically the exhibition of Etiopia at the 1937 Universal Exhibition of Paris.
- Léon Degrelle and the fascisms of 30’s and 40’s versus Anders Breivik and the fascisms of today.
- My grandfather who worked as forced laborer during the war in Germany, the Convoi XX that is related to the topographies of my childhood
- The relations between fascism and capitalism, from the Frankfort Schule until recent analyses.