Anna Odell is a Swedish conceptual artist and film director. She graduated from two of the most highly valued institutions in Sweden: University College of Arts, Craft and Design, and the Royal Institute of Art. In 2009 her graduation work, Unknown Woman 2009-349701, was an intervention in the public space. She staged a psychotic attack on the Stockholm bridge, and was taken away by the police to the psychiatric hospital. The take on the mental health institution in the spirit of Faucault’s‘ Madness and Civilisation’ made the headline of all Swedish newspapers as a case of the critical art gone too far. In 2013, in her feature debut The Reunion she reenacted the class reunion between the former classmates after 20 years, exploring the tensions between the victim, the bullies and the observers at schools. The film was selected for Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival and won a number of awards, among them two Guldbagge Awards, Sweden’s top movie honor, for film and screenplay. In contrast to many other critical artists, in her work the investigations get a twist of a cinematic form and a subversive humor.
Filmography
2018 X&Y
2013 The Reunion
2009 Okänd kvinna, student film