From Ian, Sweden, October 2017

01 October 2017

Ian, Skåne, Sweden

Öresund Valborg - I took the picture of a Valborg celebration this year from the shore of Malmö looking out beyond the fire and over the Öresund bridge towards the sun setting over Copenhagen. The image captures so much about the life I lead and love in Skåne - Valborg is the Swedish celebration of the coming of spring on the 30th April each year by setting bonfires, as they have done for centuries.
In the background is the Öresund bridge which my dad helped build in the 1990s, and over which I commute everyday to my job in Copenhagen. The colours and shades reflect the way I feel about my life in Europe right now - the bridge would not have been built, nor would I have got a job in a foreign country where I do not live, if it were not for the EU.

Ian

This postcard is one of several collated as part of collaboration between Dr Michaela Benson and the Migration Museum. A selection of these appears in the Postcards from the British in Europe installation in Departures, the museum's current exhibition exploring four centuries of emigration from Britain, bringing Britain’s emigration story and its emigrants into the national conversation about migration

Related Testimony
Ian in Skåne