2022
PUBLICATION: THE STUDIO 5TH WALL
PUBLICATION & ESSAY
ISBN: 978-91-527-4589-2
PRODUCED BY:
KONSTFACK, STOCKHOLM (SE)
In October 2021, I was invited by the faculty of the Smycke och corpus: Ädellab programme of Konstfack to participate in a studio visit project. The Studio 5th Wall publication were presented as informal talks formatted to promote dialogue: each participant hosted a session in their studio or workshop space, presenting a selection of their works, while another faculty member acted as a discussant to moderated the conversation.
To describe the “fifth wall” is to extend that concept even further. In the context of studio visits, I use the latter term to describe the discourse of making that conceals the intimacies of studio practice from a more public reality. In some sense, the purpose of these studio visits was to breach the division between the self and the other. In this way, open dialogues and deeper understandings of one another’s practice, between colleagues playing the respective roles of visitor and host in a cloistered studio-workshop space, can broaden the scope of craft discussion well beyond the institutional setting.
2024
TOXIC TRANSITS
CO-CURATED EXHIBITION WITH BEATRICE BROVIA
EXHIBITED:
HAGSTRÖMERBIBLIOTEKET, STOCKHOLM (SE)
The co-curated exhibition Toxic Transits investigates the relations between toxicity, body, and environment in a more-than-human world. Central to the exhibition is its exploration of toxicity as both an agent and concept that disrupts dichotomous worldviews, revealing how the human body and non-human natures are intimately co-constituted.
The artworks in the exhibition, set in dialogue with historical books and material from the Hagströmer Medico-Historical library’s collections, reveal deep-running interconnections between life and non-life; exposure and protection; tenderness and morbidity. The exhibition is an invitation to think with toxicity, to follow its transits and what they make visible in the proximities between bodies and environments.
Participating Artists: Sammy Baloji, Judit Fritz, Alma Heikkilä, Cecilia Jonsson, Jennie Leino, Suska Mackert, Alice Pallot, Bernhard Schobinger.
2024
PUBLICATION: TOXIC TRANSITS
PUBLICATION & ESSAY
ISBN: 978-91-531-0685-2
ISSN: 1654-5354
PUBLISHED BY:
HAGSTRÖMERBIBLIOTEKET SKRIFTSERIE (SE)
Toxic Transits is published in connection with the exhibition of the same name, that opened on 26.03.2024 and run until 08.05.2024 at Hagströmerbiblioteket in Stockholm. The book is the result of a artistic research process and of the exhibition “Toxic Transits” at Hagströmerbiblioteket, the Karolinska Institute’s medico-historical library.
Contributors: Beatrice Brovia, Nicolas Cheng, Hjalmar Fors, Mel Y. Chen, Simon M. Müller.
2020
ESSAY: SITE-RESPONSIVENESS
PUBLICATION & ESSAY
ISBN:978-3-89790-603-7
PRODUCED BY:
NORWEGIAN CRAFTS (NO), GALLERI F15 (NO) AND ARNOLDSCHE ART PUBLISHERS (DE)
The publication is named after the exhibition Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, curated by Randi Grov Berger at Galleri F15 in Moss, Norway in 2020. The artists represented in the exhibition each explore the potential of materials and the four natural elements as co-authors of artistic works, participating in and at times controlling the creation process and its outcome. The artists' practices reflect a longing for a deeper connection to the planet.
Contributors: Randi Grov Berger, Nicolas Cheng, Camilla Groth, Ánne Márjá Guttorm Graven, Jessica Hemmings, Jenni Nurmenniemi, Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir, Nina Wöhlk.
2020
SOMEBODIES
ENTANGLED BODIES, EX-VOTO, LEAD-SILVER, BIOACCUMULATION
WORK EXHIBITED:
ÖSTERGÖTLANDS MUSEUM (SE), ENGELSKA MAGASINET (SE)
Since 1810, the Reijmyre Glasbruk has produced many significant glassware, while at the same time accumulating some of the leftover reactants behind the factory and in nature. Bioaccumulation is a term that refers to the human-made compounds, progressively accumulated in a living organism. Through the reference of ex-voto, which suggests a deep concern with the body, healing and vulnerability. Somebodies responds to the historical context of the particular ruby red glass making process in Rejmyre Glasbruk, it is a narrative corresponding to slow violence and it concerns with whose bodies (both human and non-human) are exposed and constantly build resistance to contaminants.
2016-18
GOLD RUSH
CONVERSATION PIECE, GOLD, MYLAR, KAPTON
WORK EXHIBITED:
DIE NEUE SAMMLUNG - THE DESIGN MUSEUM (DE), MAURER ZILIOLI CONTEMPORARY ARTS (DE), STEDELIJK MUSEUM‘ S-HERTOGENBOSCH (NL), LETHABY GALLERY, CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS (UK), NATIONAL MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN, TRONDHEIM (NO), GALLERY FUNAKI (AU), KUNSTNERFORBUNDET (NO), RIAN DESIGNMUSEUM (SE), OBJECTSPACE (NZ)
Gold Rush investigates how gold and other precious minerals are largely used today on the ground of their physical properties - from electrical conductivity, resistance to corrosion and radiations - in the production of consumer electronics as well as for space exploration. Gold in particular is one among a group of rare minerals on which our daily interactions, entertainment needs and communications rely: it is diluted into what we consume and interact with carelessly, hidden into the secret workings and mechanisms of our appliances and daily interactions with them. By using gold and other minerals extracted from electronic waste, and rendering these visible on the body through jewellery pieces meant to adorn, the intention is to understand gold's cultural meaning and power in our time.
2018- 19
CRAFT REMEDIATION
ENTANGLED BODIES, REMEDIATION, PLACE MAKING
WORK EXHIBITED:
RIAN DESIGNMUSEUM (SE), BARKLUND & CO (SE)
Craft Remediation is a site-specific work in a local cultural space in Stockholm and presents a hands-on permaculture approach for phytoremediation. It aims to discuss how remediation and a praxis of care can be understood in a local community and social context. The investigation started at Vinterviken in Aspudden, Stockholm, a post-industrial site where Alfred Nobel invented an enormous revolution for armaments and mining explosives manufacturing: dynamite. The side effect of the industrial activities in Vinterviken that started in the 1860's have led to soil contamination in the area. The project looks into this particular history and landscape, and proposes ways to harvest-care-remediate alternative materials from industrial leftovers.
2016
FROM LANDSCAPE TO TIMESCAPE
TROMPE L’OEIL, MAHOGANY, MATERIAL FICTION, SILVER
WORK EXHIBITED:
RIAN DESIGNMUSEUM (SE), EASY!UPSTREAM (DE), KONSTHANTVERKARE (SE)
From Landscape to Timescape, trompe l'oeil patterns of materiality near and far, tend to blur their material origin and aesthetic value, thus blurring the notion of distance. The near and the far raises the question: how do our material perceptions change and respond to material norms? I refer to these works as material frictions as well as material fictions, in the attempt to unfold what lies on the material surface as much as through the layers of history.
2020
ANIMACY
CONVERSATION PIECE, EMBODIMENT, AFFECT
WORK EXHIBITED:
OBJECTSPACE (NZ)
The exhibition scenography, developed for a solo exhibition at Objectspace in Auckland - explores the agency, or rather the animacy, of blue light. It focuses particularly on the use of digital display technologies that expose us to blue light outside normal daylight hours and examines how this affects not only the human biological system but also the systems of plants and animals. This specific type of light within the exhibition space engages in a dialogue with the installation, sound, objects, and jewellery, offering an immersive embodied experience through their materiality.
Photo credits: Sam Hartnett & Objectspace
2016
(IM)PRINT
CO-CURATED EXHIBITION WITH HANNA HEDMAN, KAJSA LINDBERG AND BEATRICE BROVIA
EXHIBITED:
EASY!UPSTREAM, MUNICH (DE)
The co-curated exhibition (IM)PRINT presents works that address different interpretations of the acts of publishing and disseminating, but also of imprinting and impressing. Some of the works on display, investigate the similarity between jewellery and language or typography: how the former allows for potentially infinite configurations, functioning in this way similarly to an alphabet, whose ideal surface and interface for communication is the body and the surrounding space. Other positions bypass for a moment the physicality of jewellery and objects, and rather look at the role and practice of the artist as publisher, editor or producer.
Participating Artists: Lin Cheung, Nicolas Cheng, David Clarke, Liesbet Bussche, Silke Fleischer, Beatrice Brovia, Hanna Hedman/Sanna Lindberg, Nils Hint, Göran Kling, Kajsa Lindberg, Yuka Oyama and Niels Van de Wouwer.
2013
LINERS
BUCKS 'N BARTER, BANKNOTE, TRADE, CURRENCY
WORK EXHIBITED:
BAYERISCHER KUNSTGEWERBEVEREIN (DE), GALERIE KULLUKCU (DE), SIERAAD ART FAIR (NL)
Through a history of ruled countries and rulers, raw materials and goods have been exchanged becoming ultimately familiar. What does the materiality of a colonial banknote indicates, when most national symbols/currency are absented, and only a handful of details (depictions of fruit, local plants, and scenes of daily life) are remain visible? These objectless liners become containers of empty space, suspended next to the hand-carved white marble delicacies.
2014
KINO
CONVERSATION PIECE, CONFLICT MINERALS, GOLD, TANTALUM, OPTICAL FILM
WORK EXHIBITED:
SCHMUCK 2016 (DE), DIE NEUE SAMMLUNG - THE DESIGN MUSEUM (DE), GALERIE DE ZAAL (NL), MAD - THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN (USA), GALLERY FUNAKI (AU), THE DOWSE ART MUSEUM (NZ), SCHMUCKMUSEUM PFORZHEIM (DE), OBJECTSPACE (NZ)
Kino looks at the screen as an ambiguous embodiment of entertainment, human desire and consumption. The brooch, made from conflict minerals such as gold and tantalum and e-waste recovered from smartphones' touchscreens, reflects on these notions. We carry these minerals in our pockets, as they form the foundation for functioning electronic devices, our mobile phones above all. The brooch, at once reflective and transparent, subtly points to this aspect: we can see through it, but it also shows our reflections, implicating us in a material system based on demand, extraction, supply, and consumption, and whose exploitative mechanisms are very hard to control, let alone escape.
2012
CHINOISERIES
CLOISONNÉ, HOLLOWWARE, DISSOLVING, CRAFT HERITAGE
WORK EXHIBITED:
DESIGN MIAMI/BASEL (USA/CH), GALERIE CAROLINE VAN HOEK (BE), PAD PARIS (FR), GALERIE DE ZAAL (NL), ASIA SOCIETY (HK), KONSTHANTVERKARE (SE),
SINGAPORE NATIONAL DESIGN CENTRE (SG), HANGZHOU CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL JEWELRY AND METAL ART TRIENNIAL (CN)
Chinoiseries, a group of hollowware created partially with cloisonné, a metal enamel technique that spread throughout Asia in the 14th century via trade routes originating from Eastern Europe. By re-examining the term "chinoiserie" as a transnational hybrid and exploring the exchange of influences between European and Asian cultures, this hands-on research was conducted within one of the last surviving cloisonné enamel workshops in Beijing.
2013
TENDENSER · TENDERNESS
NORDIC EXHIBITION SERIES TENDENSER
WORK EXHIBITED:
GALLERI F15 (NO)
Over the course of the past four decades, the exhibition series Tendenser has been held at the Galleri F15 in Moss, Norway. The purpose of this ongoing project is to gather together the most recent, inventive craft work in the Nordic Countries. Curator for the 40th edition of Tendenser is Glenn Adamson.
2010
THE BEAUTY OF NOTHINGNESS
AMBER, LOOFAH, SISAL FIBRE
WORK EXHIBITED:
GALERIE MARZEE (NL), TALENTE 2011 (DE), KONSTFACK (SE), GALERIE ROB KOUDIJS (NL), DIE NEUE SAMMLUNG - THE DESIGN MUSEUM (DE)
The Beauty of Nothingness explored with different sensitivity and insight and which is culminating in a coherent body of work. The pieces exists in a gray zone somewhere between nothingness and purity. Each piece, challenging us through the beauty itself but also through the uncanniness of the pieces. In the work, most of the materials are referenced to bathing such as natural sponge, sisal fibre, loofah and cotton for cleaning up our body. Such unevocable sensations of beauty are extremely subtle and hard to acknowledge. One needs to train one's eyes and go beyond the layers to discover the beauty of nothingness.
2015
TERROIR
CULINARY CULTURE, LOCALITY, NEAR-FARAWAY
WORK EXHIBITED:
CULTURAL EMBASSY AMSTERDAM (NL)
Terroir looks at notion of distance and sets out to explore mechanisms and geographies of commodity from near-faraway. The work focuses on damask tablecloth, silver napkin and tableware coded with socio-economic material meanings in a dining setting, it aims to discuss dissolving locality and sense of place through culinary experience.
2013
BUCKS 'N BARTER
CO-CURATED EXHIBITION WITH BEATRICE BROVIA, FRIEDERIKE DAUMILLER AND KATRIN SPRANGER
EXHIBITED:
GALERIE KULLUKCU, MUNICH (DE)
The co-curated exhibition Bucks 'N Barter features works from nine international artists active in the fields of jewellery, craft, product and experience design, with site specific installations, newly commissioned works and a selection of thought-provoking pieces, all together investigating a complex and multifaceted topic, that of the human tendency to trade and exchange and how this has shaped not only the society we live in but also the way we perceive and relate to things and materials. Key themes touched upon are value and currency, material culture, barter and exchange in terms of economics, symbols, knowledge and cultures; the relationship between the market and the applied arts, between physical and virtual.
Participating Artists: Hilde De Decker, Nicolas Cheng, Richard Elenbaas, Tzu Ling Lee, Kajsa Lindberg, Beatrice Brovia, Katrin Spranger and Prang Lerttaweewit.
Scenography: Friederike Daumiller
Graphic concept: Daniela Wiesemann
2011
FAÇADES
CONVERSATION PIECE, MARBLE QUARRY, PINK ONYX
WORK EXHIBITED:
DESIGN MIAMI/BASEL (USA/CH), TRIENNALE DESIGN MUSEUM (IT), GALERIE PHOEBUS, ROTTERDAM (NL), GALERIE NOEL GUYOMARC'H (CAN), GALLERI F15 (NO), GALERIE DE ZAAL (NL), KORU 5 (FI), KONSTHANTVERKARE (SE), OBJECTSPACE (NZ)
Façades is a site-responsive work that challenges scale through the jewellery medium, as well as through the techniques employed, typically used in the making of monumental sculpture. The work started off in a quarry in Carrara when, confronted with the vertigo of the mountain, and with the unsettling beauty of the landscape being relentlessly cut-up and modified by the human intervention.
