Camilla Lekebjer header

Hello! This is a collection of things I’m into: journaling, bookbinding, photography, fanzine-making as well as drawing, collage, print-making and images made with quinoa. Have a look!

Visual journal

I started keeping a visual journal in 2005. I use it for everything: planning, sketching, thinking, dealing, savoring, documenting. It’s a perfect companion.

One thing I love about art is that it offers a continuum rather than separate boxes. It escapes the knowing and dividing mind, offering as a “both” rather than an “either-or”. It’s the most life-like thing I know. Nothing else can hold and express every piece of living at the same time; whole and broken, known and unknown.  

 

Handmade books

Bookbinding is something I learned in order to make my own journals. By now I’ve made more than 40 journals for myself. Making my own books lets me chose my own paperweight, which is perfect since the pages in most store-bought journals are too thin for the messy days. 

Photography

I point my camera at something external, but I feel it’s something else I’m photographing. An emotion sometimes. Or a memory. An exclamation mark, or a question.

I sometimes view my images as maps, or blueprints perhaps, holding together specific elements in a particular relation to one another: This moment, in this place with these particular sounds. A thought. A neighbor vacuuming. Glue from a band-aid still on my left thumb. This particular fear and anticipation. 

 

Explorations on paper

I love being passionate about ideas. I love trying things out. How great is that feeling when you lift the paper to see how a print turned out? There is pure joy in that moment. Regardless of the medium – I look for that sense of discovery. That’s probably why I don’t stick to a single form or medium. There’s always something else I’d like to try.

There is agency in art-making. We get to put things in order. We get to be makers. We get to arrange and contextualize, underline and pin down. Or – the other way around: Disrupt. We can destabilize the presupposed and create new meaning. For a moment, look. I’m breaking free.

 

Fanzines

My fanzine, Förbli apa (Stay Monkey), is a vessel for momentary statements and a kind of message in a bottle. I’ve made other zines, as well. A few that are one copy only. Fanzines, to me, are all about agency and action; work in progress – hands-on DIY, staying in draft mode. 

About me

I’m Camilla Lekebjer. I was born in 1980 in Stockholm, Sweden. I’ve lived in Malmö for many years, but recently moved to Umeå. I love learning new crafts and arts. Other things I’m excited about are food, fresh air and climate activism.

What about the writing?
Well, I’ve got a B.A. in the Swedish language specializing in creative writing and socio-linguistics. My writing has been published in Lyrikvännen, as well as online literature magazines such as Ett lysande namn and Läcker. For a few years I kept a blog, kind of a one-woman-think-tank-type-thing, called Möjlighetsdagen (2009-2011), which was about the necessity of visionary thinking, critical imagination and utopian fantasies in the struggle for social and ecological justice. Lots of writing projects have come and gone though the years. My poetry, I think, is snoozing.

Contact
Why don’t you say hello? Write me at camilla@camlek.se.

Portrait picture of Camilla Lekebjer