PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1610174
This article is part of the Research TopicCritical perspectives on gendered mental health issues/women’s mental healthView all articles
"An Archive of Feelings" of Childhoods Outside the Norm. A Perspective on Suzanne Osten's Theatre for Young Audiences
Provisionally accepted
- 1Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Faculty of Humanities, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
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This article discusses how childhood as well as gendered mental health issues are represented in Swedish director Suzanne Osten's theatre for young audiences. The article illustrates examples from two of Osten's theatre productions: The Girl, The Mother, and the Garbage (1998, for ages seven and up) and The Baa-Lambs Holiday (2014, for ages 15 and up). The article argues that Osten's approach and dramaturgical strategies in her theatre productions are crucial for addressing topics many consider taboo for young audiences. Osten's theatre performances can be regarded as a collective and ongoing contribution to public media debates surrounding children's culture and the child's place in society at large. It contends that her theatre for young audiences can be characterized as an "archive of feelings" of childhoods that are otherwise seldom highlighted in public.Keywords: Suzanne Osten, theatre for young audiences, trauma, sideways growth, childhood and gendered mental health issues.
Keywords: Suzanne Osten, Theatre for young audiences, Trauma, sideways growth, Childhood and Gendered Mental Health Issues
Received: 11 Apr 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Brinch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rebecca Brinch, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
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