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Blue-and-white China –Teaterhörnet Kalmar

Thanks to all of you who visited my exhibition these days at
Teaterhörnet in Kalmar!

Specially thanks to Konstnärsnämnden –The Arts Grants Committee in Sweden for giving me One Year Work Grant in 2017, Iaspis –The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Artists and Kalmar Municipality.

Thanks to Eva Wängelin for opening the exhibition and to my family for supporting me.

Hand painted cobalt on porcelain during my staying in Jingdezhen, China the autumn in 2017.

The transparency of porcelain.

Photographer: Bertil Hertzberg

I feel gratitude

Exactly a month after I came back from China, I got to experience my best opening ever. It was great to meet friends, colleagues and all you wonderful people who came yesterday.

Thanks to Gallery Monica Strandberg, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen who have made this possible.

Photograph: Bertil Hertzberg

My sculls

My sculls allowed me to understand how ceramics has been developed in Jingdezhen for hundreds of years, and also allowed me to make contact with its residents.

In the old ceramics factories tasks were strictly divided, and, still today, small family companies specialize in only one part of the ceramics process. Communication was a challenge, but even though we didn’t have a common language we managed to understand each other.

The teeth are sculptured by hand and make each piece unique. It was a tiresome stage of the process, but somehow a therapeutic one.Photo: Wú Shí Nán and Xiao Tong Ji

Guanyin both man and woman

One could easily imagine that the enormous effort and all the complications involved in the making of a large-scale sculpture would frighten me, and hence I would devote myself to miniatures from now on. However, that was not the case. The process from coiling to firing big things suits me perfectly. It is liberating for body and soul.

In China, Guanyin is a goddess much like our Virgin Mary, but Guanyin is both a man and a woman at the same time and I found that fascinating. In these times we are currently living, women need to discover their male sides, just as males need to discover their female sides.

Growing up with three brothers and a single mother who spent most of her time at work, I identified myself with my brothers, and actually it was not until I was eight years old when I fully realized that I was a girl and not a boy.

Something quite peculiar happens to me each time I create a large woman with my bare hands. It is as if I get rid of insecurity and the need to hide or make myself smaller than I am. Here, bear witness of my own greatness standing side by side with my smallness.

My work is about human liberation.

Photo: Peng Hui Juan

When we moved the finished fired Guanyin out from the kiln

My sculpture fell in the kiln while being fired, but for some reason it was saved!

I feel in touch with this greatness that everything is possible when you’re in a country like China with its ancestral civilization. A country where they invented paper, silk, the impression of books, porcelain and a lot of other important things.
I can move mountains!

Hu Shi fú (the kiln master) did a great work with the firing of my sculpture

Thanks to Wú Shí Nán and Sky for pictures!

Guanyin

One of the deities most frequently seen on altars in China’s temples is Guanyin.

She has many names, She is also known as ”great mercy” and has been compared to the Virgin Mary. She was originally male until the early part of the 12th century.

I like to do my own version of Guanyin.

I feel so privileged who get the opportinity to go to Kina to do what I love. Jingdezhen it is known as the ”Porcelain Capital” because it has been producing pottery for 1,700 years.

”The story of the body is a way to get closer to the history of human beings. Where is the history of love of envy, of awareness, of pity, or the history of cruelty? Who writes the history of what it means to be a human being?” (unofficial translation) From Karin Johannissons book: Kroppens tunna skal.

Photo: Kushtrim Ternava

Filmen om mina skulpturer

Här kommer den utlovade filmen.

Arbetet kring den har varit mycket givande för mig. När jag höll på med venusskulpturerna på konstmuseet i somras hade jag inget som helst manus. Jag ville testa hur stora grejer jag kunde göra utan att de kollapsade. Det är först efterhand som jag insåg att jag drabbats av min egen urkraft och kommit över min rädsla att ta plats.

Keramikverkstaden på Piña Palmera 2012

Att arbeta med keramik i Méxicor var enormt lärorikt. Vi var på en plats där det är ont om pengar och ont om det mesta, men där det finns mycket tid och mycket mänsklig värme. Vi grävde fram leran, tillverkade en sparkdrejskiva, byggde såll av rullstolshjul och myggnät, byggde en keramikugn av rödtegel, och hämtade spillved från ett snickeri i närheten för att få bränsle till bränningarna. Vi började från noll. Av en mer eller mindre övergiven snickarverkstad blev det en levande keramikverkstad på Piña Palmera.

Piña Palmeras fokus ligger på att stärka arbetet med närbaserad rehabilitering, samt verka för att människor med funktionsnedsättningar ska synliggöras, rehabiliteras och kunna ta makt över den egna situationen. Arbetet grundar sig på Konventionen om Mänskliga Rättigheter, Konventionen om Rättigheter för Personer med funktionsnedsättningar samt Barnkonventionen. http://www.pinapalmera.org