Invited guest: Sanna Sjöswärd

I´m proud to present Sanna Sjöswärd who recently have given out a book called Roots and that also have a exhibition with the same name at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. The exhibit made a great impact on me and I strongly recomend you to go and see it and you can also take a look at her homepage http://www.sannafoto.se/ were you also can order her book.

Here are her own words:

The photograph of the steps of the Childrens Home is etched in my memory. But the only details I can remember are the red jacket, the white pantyhose and the black polished heeled shoes that I had been given by my adoptive parents. The girl is four years old. She is waiting to be fetched by someone, saved by someone. I am only a child. Though adult in a way. I had learned how to fold clothes and not to spill when eating.
I was born in Teheran 1973 and christened Farzaneh. In Persian that means wise. It was not possible for my biological mother, Sedighere, to take care of me on her own. When I was a few months old I was handed over to the Farah Diba-foundation home for children. My biological parents were in the process of separating and they already had two children, my sisters Faranoz and Leila.
Mother told me today that when I was born, I did little other than eat and sleep. And that I was a very fat baby.
At the Childrens Home I was told that my mother visited me every day until I was 11 months old. The visits ceased from that time on and nobody knew why.
According to Iranian law a child can not be lawfully adopted before three years have passed. This was the reason I was four years old before I could leave the Childrens Home The Lion and the Sun and emigrate to Sweden. I was by then, in 1977, the oldest child in the Childrens Home.
I grew up in a middle-class area in Lidingö. During my upbringing, I often wondered about my biological roots. In my fantasy I imagined my mother was a Persian princess. I knew that she was tall, had long black henna-dyed hair and had green eyes, for I had seen her on TV. Sometimes I stood before the mirror with a sheet around my head and tried to imagine that we were alike.

Invited by Mikael Jansson