Asnières (2007)
2007, wall drawings in black acrylic paint, covering a surface of app. 100 m2.
Master degree exhibition at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design
For my solo exhibition at Galleri Konstfack I collected farewell greetings from a pet cemetery in Asnières, in the periphery of Paris, founded at the turn of the last century. The site provokes an ambivalent experience: the greetings and images of beloved and diseased pets are touching, but at the same time it is absurd how much money was put into their graves, with headstones or chapels in marble or granite. This paradox intrigued me, and through transforming and displacing the greetings into a contemporary format and exhibition space, I wanted to remove their kitschy and sentimental qualities and open up the material for a new reading. Lacking its recognisable frame, the names and messages become ambiguous and floating, and possible to interpret in different ways. For me this functioned as a critique and juxtaposition of the hierarchies within artistic subjects and expressions, and of what is generally considered valuable and worth preserving in our world. By painting an over sized pocket watch onto the wall, the viewer is reminded of the transitoriness of existence.
Later the same year the work was part of the exhibition In search of the lost self – 15 art students at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. Download and read the catalogue text by Camilla Larsson (EN, 2007)