How has your last name Krimes influenced your life?
– I didn’t think much about it until I was thirteen and the man I thought was my father killed himself. I was young and didn’t know how to deal with it. I started falling into the wrong circles and became violent, and instead of getting help I ended up in the police and getting punished. The external systems reinforced the identity already assigned to me. As a result, I began to see myself from an early age as someone who was outside the norm – a criminal – even though I actually wasn’t.
You spent six years in prison. What has it done to your art?
– I began to think not only about who I am, but also about how I should deal with the time that was being used as punishment against me. Then I realized that if I wanted to do something meaningful with this time, I had to put all my energy into work that not only supported me but could also contribute to larger societal discussions about the experiences I was having.
Why did you make works of art out of sheets and soap?
– When I was in solitary confinement, I only had access to things like prison soap, sheets and toilet paper – and that was pretty much it. Over time, these materials took on deeper meaning for me: what do they really represent, how do they circulate in the prison system, and how do they relate to the outside world? Soap, for example, carries with it a material language of cleansing and purity, something that relates directly to the idea of the prison and its supposed mission to reform the individual. Ultimately, the process wasn’t just about creating art, but about using what little I had to express myself and challenge the environment I found myself in.
The group exhibition “The Last Punishment” can be seen from February 7th to May 25th at the Kalmar Art Museum.
