Annika Malmqvist - Sweden

Annika Malmqvist: Statement

Outside In's Artist of the Month in March 2014

I have been on the back side of the moon since the day of my birth and have lived in psychosis until I was forty.
I therefore was a mental patient for many years, until a met a skilled therapist who worked with me for six years. I was then liberated from psychosis. During many years I was writing, mainly poetry, and this was my only rescue in all years. Ten years ago I discovered free embroidery, and since then I have been in love with this medium of expression. I have made a distance education from the Swedish Embroidery Guild (Broderiakademin) and it took me six years of work. I have had some exhibitions in Sweden and Finland.
My latest was in Candyland, Stockholm,with the motto "Poetry in yarn." Because of my health problem, I have been very much outside society, but I have been working for 22 years as a free spirit and an activist in the national movement of users and survivors of psychiatry (RSMH). Today I have a stitching group for survivors, hoping that they may feel better, and they really do. I consider myself as an survivor with a very good quality of life. 

For further infos:
info@rawartfoundation.de