Foto: Olle Halvars
The exhibition is open Saturday-Sunday 12-4pm
On a pillar in the middle of Art Lab Gnesta’s large exhibition hall, rests a whitish swan — transparent, as if it were about to be erased. The myth of swans singing a final, beautiful song just before their death has been known since antiquity and is a recurring motif throughout art history. But this particular swan skews a bit; it has borrowed its form from a long-extinct species.
The artist has long been interested in people’s handling of the inevitable end, and the symbols, rituals and customs that surrounded death historically. With a particular eye on the slow act of disappearance, she connects a prehistoric swan, the myth of the swan song and lung lichen. Historically, the green-lobed lichen was believed to be able to cure lung disease, but it has become increasingly rare in line with air pollution and the logging of old-growth forests. In an installation with carefully chiseled sculptures, ongoing song and material methods borrowed from the Renaissance, she grasps through time and lets the autumn water flow into the exhibition rooms.
Ida-Johanna Lundqvist graduated from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2018. She works with artistic research around themes such as history, medicine, the body, culture and loss, with a process that results in physical sculptures and installations. Among others, she has exhibited at the Nitja Senter for Contemporary Art in Oslo, C4 Projects in Copenhagen and the Art Academy in Stockholm. Ida-Johanna was awarded the Bernadotte stipend in 2021.
Finissage and book talk
Saturday, October 19 at 3 p.m
During Gnesta book days, artist Ida-Johanna Lundqvist and writer Cecilia Hansson meet in a conversation about lung lichens, artistic collaborations and the aesthetics of disappearance.
The production is part the project Hydran’s Wet Collection of Spells, which is carried out with the support of the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation.
