CHARMSKOOL CHARMERS: Circa Press stablemates Alejandra Guerrero and Helena Calmfors at the Charmskool Showroom launch party for Calmfors’ Forget Me Not book (photo: Tony Mitchell)
Helena Calmfors: photographer & artist behind Forget Me Not book
NOVEMBER COVER STORY: Helena Calmfors is the New York-based artist, photographer and performer behind Circa Press’s latest fetish title, Forget Me Not. Helena and Ankita Mishra, author of the book’s foreword, made a flying vist to London in late September for the book’s official launch party at Charmskool Showroom, where Tony Mitchell met them and arranged to follow up with the interview published below. There’s a separate book review in our Reviews section. Banner by Tony Mitchell: Helena at the Charmskool launch
Introduction by Tony Mitchell
FORGET ME NOT imagery by Calmfors includes self-portraits with flowers, latex fetishwear and sometimes non-fetish garments, and watercolours depicting femdom scenarios, toys and more
Owing to Helena Calmfors’ proclivity for disguising her face in her fetish self-portraits, I wasn’t entirely sure I would recognise her at the London party thrown in late September by publisher Circa Press to launch her book Forget Me Not.
Self-describing as a queer artist and performer, and originally from Umeå in Sweden, Calmfors has lived, worked and performed in New York City since 2014.
Forget Me Not, above, is a well-chosen selection of Calmfors’ highly stylised, fetish-related photography and painting, collected in a beautifully produced hardback volume of some 144 pages.
And fortunately its author turned out to be quite easy to spot at the launch event, which was hosted — very appropriately — at the Charmskool Showroom in Shadwell.
Arriving and looking across towards the rear of the showroom, I spied a slim, tall woman dressed from throat to ankles in body-hugging black latex, and thought: that’s got to be her. I was not wrong.
And following introductions, Calmfors herself turned out to be the personification of charm, politeness and wit. This in my experience is not unusual with Swedish fetish folk. I told her I even knew a couple of them from the same Swedish city as her, which surprised her, given that it’s way up north, some 400 miles from the country’s capital, Stockholm.
Thanks to fortuitous timing, the event was also graced by Circa Press stablemate (and fetish photography royalty) Alejandra Guerrero, who was in London for a brief visit with husband John Fiebke. (See end of article for more guest photos).
By the end of the launch bash, Helena and I were exchanging contact details, and I was promising her a Fetishistas interview. There’s also a separate review of Forget Me Not — see link at the end of this article.
From chatting with her at the launch, I felt sure Helena Calmfors would make a great interview — and for the second time that evening, I was not wrong! Now read on…
Helena Calmfors: The Fetishistas Interview
I begin the interview with an icebreaker question for Helena based on my discovery of the correct way to pronounce the name Calmfors in Swedish. It’s pronounced Calmforzh, ie with a soft “j” sound like the French “je”.
I ask her if, as a New York resident (of Brooklyn, to be precise), she tries to get Americans to pronounce her surname correctly, as I’ve noticed that not all her adopted countryfolk pay that much attention to such niceties.
“I gave up on trying to have the Americans pronounce it the right way a long time ago!” she admits, then adds that it’s not just the surname that foxes them.
“When I first moved to New York, about 11 years ago, I asked my first roommate how she would pronounce Helena in English, and I’ve gone with that ever since — like Elena but with an H. The sound of the vowels in Swedish are hard if you’re not a native speaker!”
With the really important stuff out of the way, I go on to ask her how the Forget Me Not book project actually came about. Did Circa Press publisher David Jenkins see her work online and approach her, or did she approach him?
BOUDOIR, the book of Polaroids by Ifa Brand, above, alerted Helena to Circa Press’s output
“David found my work and reached out, suggesting we make a book together,”’ she explains. “I was already familiar with Circa’s publications and had followed their work for some time. I first discovered them because I knew of Ifa Brand who had previously done a beautiful book with them.”
For anyone who doesn’t know Ifa’s 2021 Circa book Boudoir, it consists entirely of Polaroid self-portraits — a medium also employed by Helena for her early self-portraiture.
Drawn to the simplicity of point-and-shoot
Those of us familiar with Circa’s fetish book offerings will know that publisher Jenkins does love a Polaroid! But what motivated Helena to use Polaroid for her own early work?
“David does love a Polaroid, doesn’t he?!” she agrees. “There’s something so intimate and precious about the medium. It’s perfect for capturing images that touch on taboo subjects or reveal raw and genuine moments between people.
“When I first started using instant film I was mostly doing performance-based work and it became the perfect way to capture those fleeting moments, the little in-betweens that make up the essence of a performance.
“I was also drawn to the simplicity of a point-and-shoot camera as I’ve never enjoyed the technical aspects of cameras. For me it has always been about documenting myself in a performance or an environment that I’ve created, rather than creating a technically polished photograph.”
DENIAL, an early Calmfors Polaroid, the medium ‘perfect for images touching on taboo subjects’
Helena Calmfors attended the London book launch with fellow Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist and long-time pal Ankita Mishra, who also penned the foreword to Forget Me Not.
Mishra makes some interesting points and raises some interesting questions in her piece — starting right off the bat with: “Is selling an erotic image of oneself ultimately exploitative?” and suggesting the work in Forget Me Not confronts the viewer with this very question.
I put it to Calmfors that any erotic image could potentially be exploitative, but perhaps only
erotic selfies have the potential to exploit both an image’s subject and its creator simultaneously. How does she respond to this idea?
“I wouldn’t say that I necessarily agree with that. I actually think that when the erotic image is used as a self-portrait, it completely shifts its meaning, and the gaze. Instead of only being observed, you’re able to look back. It gives you control over when and how you’re seen, and in that sense, it allows you to reclaim some power.”
Does she think her work not only poses the question raised by Ankita, but also answers it?
“I find the push and pull — between owning how you’re seen and knowing that anything you create will be viewed and interpreted beyond your control — very interesting.
“So I guess I would say that my work is exploring that tension, addressing the question but not necessarily answering it.”
Book’s inspired use of two different papers
WATERCOLOURS in Forget Me Not are printed on cartridge-type paper (image: Helena Calmfors)
Turning to the actual physical qualities of the Forget Me Not book, I remark that I really like the way it uses two different paper stocks to delineate her photography from her watercolour paintings — with a matt, cartridge-type paper used for the latter sections.
“I love it as well!” she agrees. “That was David’s idea and it really shows his expertise in creating beautiful books.
“It’s not easy to bring photography and watercolour together without them feeling like two separate bodies of work, but I think the tactile shift from page to page really helped frame each medium, and in the end tie everything together beautifully.”
Ankita’s intro mentions two titles assigned to elements of Helena’s work — Tools of the Trade and Dress Up — which are not used anywhere else in the book. While it’s clear which images belong in the Tools category (her paintings of various instruments of discipline), I ask Helena to clarify which elements of the photographic work fit into the Dress Up category.
She explains: “The Dress Up collection is a series of self-portraits where I’m not only wearing latex but also fabric clothing like pink silks, floral prints and other materials that carry a traditional sense of femininity.
CARNFORS’ Dress Up images combine latex fetishwear with garments in fabrics such as tulle
“Dress Up in this context isn’t about imitation but about questioning what femininity means, especially from a queer perspective. It’s about reclaiming and reinterpreting symbols of softness and beauty that have often been defined thorough a male and heterosexual lens.
“I was also thinking a lot about the Rococo period when creating the series so you might see a nod to that era. It’s a period that has been described as frivolous or purely decorative and I find that interesting in relation to femininity itself, how it is often seen as superficial and vain.
“The pink silks and the florals become symbols of femininity that are meant to please, but can start to mean something else.”
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