Earth, Wind, Fire, Water at Galleri F 15

Artists: Hildur Bjarnadóttir, Ebba Bohlin, Fellesskapsprosjektet å Fortette Byen, Alma Heikkilä, Karoline Hjorth, Riitta Ikonen, Guðjón Ketilsson, Kasper Kjeldgaard, Stian Korntved Ruud, Ivana Králíková, Valentin Manz, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Pekka Paikkari, Louise Sidelmann, Brynjar Sigurðarson, Veronika Sedlmair, Ida Wieth, Hedvig Winge, Charlotta Östlund

Exhibition title: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water

Curated by: Randi Grov Berger

Venue: Galleri F 15, Jeløy, Norway

Date: June 16 – October 4, 2020

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Galleri F 15, Jeløy

Earth, Wind, Fire, Water – Nordic Contemporary Crafts is the 44th edition of the exhibition series Tendenser (Tendencies) at Galleri F 15 in Moss, Norway. For nearly fifty years, Tendenser has been one of the leading platforms for contemporary craft in the Nordic region. First presented in 1971 as an annual exhibition highlighting Norwegian practitioners, Tendenser has since expanded to a biennial format, incorporating trends from across the Nordic countries.

This year’s exhibition brings together seventeen artists and artist groups from the Nordic countries who uses their craft, their tools, and their deep material knowledge to address pending environmental issues. Acknowledging the powerful interdependence between humankind and often overlooked materials and organisms, many of the presented artworks evoke the fragility and transiency of our earthly existence by way of components that alter, dry up, or decay throughout the exhibition period. Others reflect holistic ecological practices, implementing material collaborations to connect with the surrounding environment, with a piece of land, or with the material itself. The artists featured in Earth, Wind, Fire, Water each explore the potential of materials and the elements to co-author artistic works; to participate in and at times control the process and outcome. Encompassing biology, geology, and cosmology, their practices confront a longing for a deeper connection to the earth.

We live in a time marked by enormous changes in technology and science, while the environmental crisis has precipitated urgent discussions concerning our relationship to our immediate material world. Nordic contemporary crafts are taking an active part in this philosophical discourse, with a wide range of practices and a diversity of approaches and expressions. The exhibition offers different ways to think about, with, and through craft. Many of the craftspeople featured in the 44th edition of Tendenser identify with additional designations; designer, visual artist, art psychotherapist, photographer, storyteller, architect, gardener. They express their ideas through a multiplicity of forms; from embroidery to photography, from ceramics to video, from paintings to text, from sculptures in wood, stone, glass, and metal to installations created with a wide range of organic and synthetic materials.

Alongside the exhibition follows the publication Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, an anthology that brings together seven distinguished writers and thinkers living in the Nordic region: Camilla Groth, a ceramic artist, teacher and post doc researcher at the University of Gothenburg; the curator and writer Jenni Nurmenniemi; Nicolas Cheng, a jewellery artist and researcher; Jessica Hemmings, an author who writes about textiles and a professor of craft at the University of Gothenburg; Nina Wöhlk, a freelance curator and writer; the poet and translator Ánne Márjá Guttorm Graven; and Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir,a curator, writer and associate professor at the University of Iceland. The exhibition serves as a backdrop and inspiration for the writers as they forage deep into the material world and endeavour to flesh out concepts such as material interaction and material agency, posthumanism, site-responsiveness and symbiotic thinking. How do artists relate to their chosen materials? What does a human-material interaction look like, and how might one approach a material, not from the position of a master, but from that of a collaborator?

Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Karin, 2019. Digital c-type. Photo by Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen

Alma Heikkilä, these processes include plasticity, mutualistic symbiosis, and extinction, 2020. Plaster, polyester, pigments, plant-based inks, acrylic polymer, and others. Photo details by Eivind Lauritzen, photo installation by Vegard Kleven

Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Mrs Sim, 2017. Digital c-type. Photo by Karoline Hjorth & Rii?a Ikonen

Charlotta Östlund, Arrow, 2018, Plant parts, metal wire. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Charlotta Östlund, Bang, 2020, Plant parts, metal wire. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Ebba Bohlin, Loss of Information, 2020. Recycled aluminium. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Guðjón Ketilsson, Poem I-II, 2019. Painted tree branches. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Britta Marakatt-Labba, Kosmos (Cosmos), 2020. Textile, paper, embroidery, application. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Britta Marakatt-Labba, Skuggor (Shadows), 2019 – 2020. Textile, embroidery, application. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Charlotta Östlund, Hiking Pole, 2018. Plant parts, metal wire, paint, glitter. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Charlotta Östlund, Small Galaxy, 2018. Plant parts, metal wire, paint, beads. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Christine Cynn, earth:NOW:being, 2011. 3-screen video, 16:49 min. Music by Giles Kwakeulati King-Ashong (Kwakebass). Photo by Vegard Kleven

Ivana Králíková, Battery Jeløy, 2020, Re-used cotton, re-used metal, borrowed soil, salt, water, voltmeter. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Stian Korntved Ruud, Clock #03, Tuning Fork I – III, 2020. Metal, wood, electronics. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Hildur Bjarnadóttir, colors of adaption, 2020. Plant dyed silk. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Liv, 2018. Digital c-type. Photo by Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen

Ida Wieth, Passage, 2019, Blown, fused & slumped glass, metal oxides, copper wire, steel, birch veneer. Photo by Eivind Lauritzen

Kasper Kjeldgaard, Casts of Time – Lost in Translations, 2020. Bronze, ashwood, beeswax. Photo by Eivind Lauritzen

Pekka Paikkari, Curiosity Bottles, 2020. Ceramics, Magna Crete, epoxy, rust, ash, paint, silver leaf. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Pekka Paikkari, Paradise I, 2020. Ceramics, Magna Crete, epoxy, rust, ash, paint, silver leaf. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Pekka Paikkari, Paradise II (Fractured), 2020. Ceramics, Magna Crete, epoxy, rust, ash, paint, silver leaf. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Hedvig Winge, Porcelain Piece, 2020. Porcelain clay, textile, rope, nails, hoists, hooks, tread, string. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Louise Sidelmann, Prikket streg I-II, Hæftet streg I-II, 2020. Porcelain, sinter engobe. Photo by Vegard Kleven

Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Brit, 2018. Digital c-type. Photo by Karoline Hjorth & Rii?a Ikonen

Fellesskapsprosjektet å Fortette Byen, Meahccetrošša/Matatu: Eai č uovo mearriduvvon luottaid, eai ge vissis njuolggadusaid / They don’t follow routes and they don’t conform to regulated order, 2011 (Kárášjohka) 2020 (Jeløy). Recycled wood, paint. Photo by Eivind Lauritzen

Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates # Inger, 2019 Digital c-type. Photo by Karoline Hjorth & Rii?a Ikonen

Brynjar Sigurðarson & Veronika Sedlmair, Of Stones and Faces (Animated Geology), 2020. 7 crafted stones in Reierstranda, Site responsive intervention. Photo by Brynjar Sigurðarson