Petrifications丨石化

TCG ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM(AIR) Exhibition

2019.11.23 – 2019.12.03

Artist

Borghild Rudjord Unneland（NO）

Curator

Zhou Fengyi

Location

TCG Nordica International Culture Center（ F.3 -B.1 the Second Avenue of Rain Town, Kunming）

The Shape of Time

Borghild graduated from Bergen School of Art in 2003. She uses daily objects as her primary instrument in her creative process. She is interested in the intercorrelation of materials and sounds. She attempts to create a sense of undescribeble emotions through the daily objects in her art works.

Alfred Vaagsvold is a director and artist of Norwegian lighthouse Gallery, who is also an old friend of Nordica. He introduced Borghild to me through emails. Borghild is a representative of Norwegian new textile art. Out of my curiosity, I tried to research about this artist’s personal website, hoping to get more information about Borghild. The artistic style in Northern Europe is well known for its simplicity. As I researched about Borghild’s art works on her website, I found that her website was also very simple, with only pictures and a few descriptions. I discovered some ingenious display in the space, which seem to well reflect the language of daily objects. A few months ago, Borghild told me that she wanted to use cement and textile products to create a work and display it during her stay in Kunming. There are two kinds of materials that can be seen everywhere in daily life and have extremely extreme texture and density. Although I have little clue about what kind of physical changes will happen between them, I am curious about how the artists can change the structure and grammar of everyday objects. Meantime, I want to see how they transform daily objects into non-daily objects and how those non-daily objects can be turned into daily objects.

I (Fengyi) sent her 10 questions by email. Among the simple questions, we can have some understanding of her and her art.

Fengyi here on referred to as F

Borghild here on refereed to as B

F：I have browsed your personal homepage. There are not too many text descriptions about your works. Is that your purpose?

B：Yes, that is the purpose, I am very interested in the unspoken visual language and ambiances that is not easily verbalized. I have some texts that are written about my art but it is in Norwegian.

F：How do you understand the theme in art creation? What is its relationship with artists?

B：I believe that the artist relation to the art and the visitor is to show other ways than the verbalized to discuss themes not easily discussed. I wish to look at the things we usually meet in our everyday life and that become overlooked and by manipulating them, show them in a new light.

F：Do you know China? What is China’s attraction to you?

B：I am very interested in the culture difference between making my art in China versus Norway. Since I am working with found everyday objects, it is exciting to see how the connotations and associations change in a Chinese setting. I haven’t been in China before so I am very happy to see Kunming and get to know the Chinese culture and people.

F：Do you know the current situation of contemporary art in China?

B：We see a very limited scope of chinese contemporary art in Europe, so I am not very known to the local contemporary art scene, and I hope I can see some contemporary art and the thoughts around it, while I am there.

F：Concrete and textile are two extremely extreme materials. Why do you choose them?

B：Contrasts are something I often works with in my art. In the project at TCG I am interested in the relation between the intuitive soft and the hard texture the the concrete gives.

F：Why do you want to combine Chinese elements and symbols in your creation? If this is a form of cultural collision, what kind of sparks do you want this form to collide with?

B：I don’t work with symbols I don´t know. The use of Chinese elements like furniture is a part of staging a scene, where the strange meet the everyday life and something new appear. It is not a cultural collision but a collision between something known and unknown, and would be similar in different cultural settings. The connotations the visitor gets are of course personal, and I think it is interesting to see if there are different readings of my art. Thats also one of the reasons I don´t explain the art in words that much.

F：What do you think of the difference between installation and sculpture?

B：The installation is a collection of objects (sculptures) that relate to a space much more than the traditional understanding of the one ’Sculpture’.

F：How do you understand the relationship between art and market?

B：I am in the lucky position that I have a 10 year scholarship from the Arts Council Norway, so I am not reliant of the market for my art practice. The relation is not unproblematic but as with all things we are reliant of some kind of economy for the art. How this should work could be discussed for ages.

F：What is your ideal art ecology like?

B：I am very happy with the Norwegian art ecology where many artist are state funded, but with artistic freedom.

F：From the perspective of culture and art, what kind of “chemical effect” do you want to leave during your short stay?

B：As I hinted to in earlier questions I would be very happy if my art opened up for the unspoken and non verbalized experiences for some visitors.

I predominately work with installations, using everyday objects and natural materials as important effects. In my work I explore relationships between materials, surfaces and details and the associative affects they produce. Through unexpected material combinations, manipulated surfaces and unforeseen attached details, I seek to instigate new lines of thought.The relationship between thought and material presence lies at the core of my art production. The sculptures can be interpreted like poems in physical form, where the links that appear in the encounters between different objects generate associative connections like stanzas in a poem.

Creative process