Her parents’ love story began on the French Riviera, when Rebecka Tollens’ father, a French waiter, fell in love with a Swedish jazz singer outside the restaurant. Something kept calling Rebecka to France so ten years ago, she packed her bags and arrived in Paris on a quest to better understand her father’s origins–and her own. As an artist who paints from a studio in the heart of Place Saint-Michel overlooking the Seine, Rebecka is able to observe multiple perspectives of the city: there is the clichéd Paris the excited tourists have come to capture… and then something else she describes, “Details on the buildings that are super dark that no one will ever acknowledge. It’s like putting your feet into the river of history. It’s something really sad and dark about this place yet it is beauty itself.”
What is your Paris story?
My mother is a Swedish jazz singer, and my father is a French waiter from the Alpes who met on the French Riviera over 30 years ago when my mum sang in front of my father’s restaurant. I was brought up in Sweden by my mother. My father moved to Sweden in the name of love and they got me and my brother, and even though he stayed in Sweden, I did not grow up with him. Leaving for Paris ten years ago was mainly a quest of understanding my father and learning his heart so that I could speak to him (and myself..?) without boundaries. Language is a complicated matter. The languages I’ve been taught to express myself with is a historical, cultural and universal agreement I never agreed to. When I free myself of language and words, I also free myself from the definitions and morals that make it impossible for me, us, to find freedom. It’s paradoxical, because the more languages I learn, the more free I feel from speaking at all. Anyways, I learned french in many ways, for example, as a boulangère on the French west coast, but mainly through all the beautiful and harsh meetings with French men and women throughout these 10 years. I never really had a plan, but I was aiming for studying human rights. Now I am a drawing artist, and all the lives I’ve had between day one in Paris and today are without hesitation the opposite of one another. I guess that’s what kept me here. The quest continued further than expected.
Tell us about this spot you chose.
The spot is my work studio. It’s situated at the Place Saint-Michel and the fountain’s machinery is in the basement of the building. I can see la Seine if I lean through the window, and the light is always bright even on gray days. Saint-Michel is probably one of the most touristic spots in Paris and it feels improbable to work in the middle of all the selfie sticks and historical buildings. My walk from home to work is crazy, from Bastille through le Marais, crossing la Seine to ile Saint-Louis, passing through the gardens of Notre Dame and ending up in front of the fountain. It’s the cliché picture of the false, Parisian dream from outside, and for me this neighborhood before going to work here, was somewhere I never went. But now when I open my window and all the tourists are super happy to be on vacation, I observe this place from another angle. So much drama in all of this beauty, a lot of details on the buildings for example that are super dark but that no one will ever acknowledge, it’s like putting your feet into the river of history. It’s something really sad and dark about this place yet it is beauty itself.
What has been your favorite moment in Paris so far?
My favorite moment has endured for years, and it started when I got a job as a gallery assistant at Galerie Arts Factory five years ago. everything flowered from then and on – on good and bad, my universe of raw flesh and humanity was accepted. I can’t choose one moment, cause these years with Effi and Laurent and everyone, everything that has happened linked to this gallery, is just too much to sum up.
Tell us about your most challenging experience as an expat.
Without being too pessimistic, this town constantly slaps you in the face. I grew up in a country of precaution, “kindness”, political correctness, reservation, structure, the rule of Jante and medium-fat milk. Everything different to that will be an outrageous slap. It’s more this question that should be asked: how does one find peace and a way of handling the moment between chaos whilst living here? The time when there is no problem and you just got out from one, exhausted, without thinking ‘When is the chaos coming back?’
The fun thing about this is that there is neither a moment of chaos nor a moment of complete calmness here. It just is, cause this is life. As long as I live on my little cloud, not getting too grounded, I handle it, and a problem is nothing. I also didn’t really chose a profession where anything goes smoothly and cool.
The rat invasion in my apartment when I was 23 after my fridge exploded, the french bureaucracy, and the extreme sexism that as a woman you have to confront here are examples of shit to deal with.
The most difficult thing for me was to be able to be understood, and also to understand myself after leaving behind a whole identity. The rest is nothing.
How do you meet people in Paris?
My work. And love.
What advice would you give to others wanting to move abroad?
Spiritual receptiveness resides in understanding, which I apprehended as something underestimated and limited by society when I wanted to work within politics. By putting aside what is imposed on you and focusing on decrypting your honest truth, you can manage to invite people around you to find themselves in the same human and emotional freedom as you are seeking to attain. Without moving, your truth will sustain in order, based on one single truth. Find chaos, and your path will grow. Go.
How do you deal with homesickness?
For example, I am now doing a project about the indigenous people, the Samis, living in Northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. The mythology and the proverbs coming from the Sami culture are a poem that is passionate and brings me back to all the true magic deriving from my country. You just have to find your ways, I don’t think that there is one simple answer to this question, or I will have to open up my heart right here. Let’s do it next time 🙂
How can people continue following your story?
Instagram : rebeckatollens
Website : www.rebeckatollens.com
All my work is available at Galerie Arts Factory, 27 rue de Charonne 75011 Paris, Monday-Saturday 12:30-19:30. My expo “Bright” runs until June 16th.
Photos by Kate Devine
