Unidentified Objects

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Artist Sara Vajira Lindstöm is displaying the small, paradoxical moments that can change our world at Soft Gallery in Oslo

The Soft Gallery in Raadgusgaten, Oslo, is the first gallery in Norway to present Sarah Vajira Lindström and her project “Unidentified Objects”.  The starting point for this project is her own obsession with collecting things from nature, then taking those findings home to be rearranged – a romantic’s longing to organize our nature.

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On a white painted table in the gallery we observe plastic cans and glass containers with seaweed – or are they anemones and corals? They may also be moss or fungi, even bacterial cultures or tissue samples from the human body. The objects are located in an indefinable room between nature and our own inner being, and are all twisted together in astonishment for us to see.

Sarah Vajira Lindström wants to investigate what relationship we humans have to the nature around us and the contradiction between wild and  cultivated nature.  Lindström has selected, for the exhibition at SOFT gallery, a collection of small, unidentifiable objects,  a collection which apparently resembles what she may have found in the woods, but all of which are manufactured by the artist herself. The objects are natural recreations of fictitious, nonexistent organisms and it may look as if the artist, through the creation of each object, has captured a moment and frozen a growth process,  taking care of it in its own natural historical archive.

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This is neither nature nor body, but a work of art by Sara Vajira Lindstrøm. The hybrid objects are partly made of plastic and silk. What does she want to show us? Why this ambiguity?

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The exhibited works are the artist’s own collection of experiments with different techniques and materials. Lindström has explored knotting techniques, heat spraying, embroidery, and melting and burning of materials in textiles, plastics and rubber. She has worked with layers of transparency and opacity. The objects are small and varied and the viewer must be very close to discover all the details. The experience may remind us of a discovery in nature where one studies the details of a leaf or a seed capsule.

Sarah Vajira Lindström (1981) is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Oslo. She has a Masters degree in textile art from the Royal College of Art in London and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Central Saint Martins in London. She has participated in several group exhibitions at the Nordic Centre, Helsingborg, Talente 2014 in Munich, 2009 in Eindhoven, Konstslöjds, the Architecture Museum in Stockholm and Fablernas Värld (The World of Fairy Tales) at Konsthantverkarna in Stockholm. She will exhibit at Liljevalchs Vårsalong Stockholm until spring 2015.

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The exhibition Unidentified Object at Soft Galley runs through February 8.

www.sarahlindstrom.com

Text: Tor Kjolberg
All photos: Øystein Thorvaldsen, except exterior image of Soft Gallery, Oslo by Tor Kjolberg.