No building is eternal.
What happens to an abandoned building?
This building turns back into soil.
riso print on 115 g paper, handmade nettle yarn
14 x 14 cm
2023
This book follows my thinking and experimenting processes among making an artist book with the theme “fibre”. It starts from learning to make nettle yarn and ends with an outdoor exhibition of sculptures made of nettle fibre and clay that shows natural disappearance of natural materials.
Artist book (pdf)
Process
We were given an assignment to make artist books on the theme “fibre” for pop-up exhibition related to upcoming exhibition of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s artworks at Henie Onstad Art Center. Magdalena Abakanowicz is known for her Abakans, big woven sculptures. I got inspired by her use of different fibre materials, some of which don’t cost anything and have been collected from the ground such as pieces of rope from the harbour. I want to explore how to make my own art works using free materials and constructing them from the beginning, from fibre stage, myself. An idea that I had had for a long time came to my mind: making of nettle fabric. I watched the first YouTube video I found on the subject and it looked like something I could do myself with no special equipment. Nettles grow everywhere and they are free.
I wanted to see if I could make nettle fabric without any previous experience, expensive tools and living in the city. So I picked some nettles by the river next to the school, watched some Youtube-videos and started trying to make yarn for the first time.
I collected nettles on my way to school by Akerselva, separated the fibres and spun them into thread. I experimented with the spinning following a classmate’s tips. I also tried separating the fibres from nettles one and two days after picking, which was much harder.
My flatmate told me about an exhibition On Lyncanthropy Fabulation & Weaving Spells by Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel at Billedkunstnerne i Oslo gallery. I went to see it, and afterwards messaged the artist to ask some advice. He advised me to watch the videos by Allan Brown, which I did.
Being an architect by previous education, I started to think about making more spatial sculptures with nettle fibre and clay. Also Magdalena Abakanowicz’s art works are three dimensional.
I dipped nettle fiber in liquid clay and used round shaped support forms to make simple and self-standing miniature structures. I wrote on them: no building is eternal / what happens to abandoned building / this building turns to back into soil
I put the structures on display in a public space by Akerselva next to the Grünerløkka studenthus and followed how they react to weather and other circumstances, possibly disappearing, turning back into soil. I went to check on the structures every day until the book binding started.
The work is reflecting on use of artificial building materials and memory and layers of history in built environment.