Force of Habits
Exhibition
Ongoing research
2024

MP03 - Mutual Pressure 03
Digital print on paper, digital print on photographicpaper, clip frame

MP02 - Mutual Pressure 02
Walnut wood, Lab fabricated Microscope slide with Green marble of Tinos

MP01 - Mutual Pressure 01 - Mortar
Aluminium sheet, onyx

(extract from exhibition text)

The exhibition, Force of habit brought together Alberte Agerskov and Camille Yvert’s ongoing research on toxic matters that persist in our everyday lives. Both approaching the periphery of the human body as an off-set in/outwards in the physical world, the two artists propose a possibility of noticing invisible presences of toxic materials that communicate and interact intimately with parts of our bodies without our awareness or consent. Yvert and Agerskov interrogate how desire can have harmful undertones and how habitual patterns can prevent us from healing, maintaining behaviours as stasis which ultimately translate into urgent needs for change.

RCP : E3
Situation
Exhibition
Art Verona, Verona (IT) 2024

Washi paper with relief, 9x6 cm.
Plastic, metal clips 4x3m.
Roll-on glass bottles with rose water and saliva Ø1x8cm.

Audio piece:
binaural field recording, 32:01 min.

On the occasion of ArtVerona, the third extract of RCP took the form of an installation and collective situation, in which five of the people participating in the project were invited to share their experiences at the fair. The situation presented itself to the public as a silent incursion of the ordinary, without beginning or end, through bodies that tell us about their experiences. An attempt to make the voice a body, fragmenting the text until it becomes pure sound. A work on vocalising, that humbles the signifying potential of the voice, which proposes a rediscovery of bodily significance: a form of bodily communication that circumvents the laws and limits of the linguistic sphere, and reveals the materiality of language corporeally.

The exhibition space itself was hidden behind a large translucent plastic curtain, and took the form of an archive of memory and matter. A space closed off from view, blocking any passing of liquids while at the same time permeable to external noise. Visitors were invited to put on headphones and enter the nocturnal forest with overlapping voices.

Exhibition text by Donato Loforse

Orto Lunare
Landscape, 1600 m2.
Casa Laboratorio Cenci, Amelia (IT)
2021-2023

Fontana 01 l corten steel, soft lime stone from the site, aluminium casts, 160x100 cm

Fontana 02 l corten steel, recycled Afghan slate, antique gravestone from the site, 48x42x100 cm

Fontana 03 l corten steel, recycled Afghan slate, tin, 240x120x100 cm

Chair 05 l soft lime stone from the site, 100x60x120 cm

The garden, Orto Lunare, connects the soil to the sky, and is constructed after a set of rules following the movement of the moon during the year, biodynamic and synergic gardening principles.

Water runs through the garden and is gradually paused and shaped by three fountains. Casa Laboratory Cenci lies in a part of Umbria that becomes more and more dry each year, and so these waters come from, and run back to, a rainwater reservoir.

The reflective memorial fountain, fountain 03, one of three sculptural fountains of Le Tre fontane di Bernardo, is inspired by a study of Central European hydrological landmarks called Hunger stones (1400-1800 AC). The most known example is a stone placed at the bottom of the Elbe river in Děčín, Czech Republic with the inscription ”Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine” (“If you see me, weep”).

Silphiofera (studies)
On-going research
Exhibition
Small Sculptures, Sharp Projects, Copenhagen (DK) 2024

SS02 l Engraved plexiglass
50 x 120 cm

PM02 l Lipstick painted pocket mirror
24,3 x 9,3 cm

PM05 l Engraved pocket mirror
24,3 x 9,3 cm

SS03 l Engraved aluminium
26,6 x 6 cm

A series of works resulting from a research into the Silphium plant. The flower, used as a remedy for natural contraception, only grew wild in forested meadows called the Silphiofera, and became a high trade-value crop in the ancient Greek colonised city of Cyrene ca. 600 BC.

As a consequence of its resistance to cultivation and harvest, the flower went extinct ca 100BC. Silphium is the first plant to be documented extinct as a consequence of human use. The myth tells about bodies resisting cultivation and colonisation, and uses comparative methods and research based practice to read contemporary problematics transhistorically. The western position in development and use of contraception, from the obfuscated history of the Silphium plant till today, is hard to escape.

Silphiofera
On-going research
Installation
Provinciale 11 x Centro Artistico Alik Cavaliere, Milan, Italy 2023

Sticks, tissue paper, flour, birth control pills, various dim.

Solo-exhibition, curated by Angela Vettese.
Catalogue by Alberte Agerskov with texts by : Alyssa Erspamer,
Arianna Forte, Maddalena Iodice, Fafaya Mogensen, Laura Tripaldi, Angela Vettese and Georgia René Worms. (catalogue upon request)

An installation resulting from a research into the Silphium plant. The flower, used as a remedy for natural contraception, only grew wild in forested meadows called the Silphiofera, and became a high trade-value crop in the ancient Greek colonised city of Cyrene ca. 600 BC.

As a consequence of its resistance to cultivation and harvest, the flower went extinct ca 100BC. Silphium is the first plant to be documented extinct as a consequence of human use. The myth tells about bodies resisting cultivation and colonisation, and uses comparative methods and research based practice to read contemporary problematics transhistorically.

Press by Maddalena Iodice for MOLD Magazine

RCP : E1
On-going research
Sound
Video
Provinciale 11 x Centro Artistico Alik Cavaliere, Milano, Italy 2023

RCP:E0
Single channel video (8:41 min)

RCP:E1
18 speakers with looped audios of diverse lenght.

Above images are screenshots from the RCP:E0 video

Rhizomatic correspondence piece (RCP) is a a sound-based work that grows in continuum. The work re-orients and potentialises the flower x female allegory by using the root-like, spontaneous and uncontrollable networks that plants and flowers continuously create, to connect all beings of the second-gender.

Audio files are sent in a email chain from person to person, functioning as a seed was sown, sharing personal experiences about mind-body being controlled by a system and its pre-defined medical technologies. In the RCP intersectionality is key, and listening is key. Participants are asked to listen fully to the story they receive from someone else, also if the story is in a mother tongue different from their own. Listening to laughs, hesitations and rhythms in the voice of someone exhaling a language you don’t understand, connects you to their message on other levels.

RCP:E0, is the establishing extraction (E0), in the form of a video work showing the POV of an explorer, finding herself in the midst of a singing forest on the Amalfi coast.

RCP:E1 is the first extraction (E1) and consists of 18 speakers with 18 voices installed within the courtyard of the exhibition space at the exhibition, Silphiofera.

Interview with curator, Fafaya Mogensen (catalogue upon request)

RCP : E2
On-going research
Residency
Exhibition
Performance
Sound
Esposizione Sud Est, Conversano, Puglia (IT), 2023

RCP:E2
Performance Headphones 360°-recording (20 min.) looped

Paper chair 03 - Mirrors, found wooden chair, hemp thread, paper, flour, water, 50x50x120cm

RCP:E2 took shape as a performance where 30 speakers were installed in separate speakers around the meadow of a ruined chapel, a forgotten landmark close to Conversano. The images presented on the right show a photoseries interpreting the invisible performance, by following the point of view of a visitor, tracing her shadows onto the landscape as she walks within it to look for, and listen to the voices.

The documentation of the RCP:E2 performance is a 360° sound recording, made within a nocturnal field. Night birds and sounds of steps through the grass blend in with the flux of voices shifting in languages and intensities.

The images presented on the left depict Paper chair 03, a study of immanence in matter. The imprint in the seat records a material meeting between human- and chair-body. The combination of flour, water and tissue paper creates the papier maché structure, and explores the viscosity and porosity of bodies and objects phenomenologically.

Press by Robert Mansueto for Salgemma Project

Tadelakt Daybed 01
On-going research
Objects
Saks Potts, Copenhagen (DK) 2021

Iron, wood, lime, beeswax, 90x45x200cm

In Daybed 01 ancient techniques are challenged by using lime mortar to make objects and sculptures, mobilising an inert material traditionally used for floor- and wall claddings, while exploring the notion of contact and caution between the human body and the limestone in its different chemical states: Lime mortar, when dry, purifies the air, and unlike cement, it is a porous material that breathes. It hardens over time, slowly reacting with the air around it, always in movement chemically. However, after the limestone is fired it is highly caustic, so working with it can be harmful.

Rituals of Gathering
Exhibition
SDG, Benevento (IT) 2020

Recuperated onyx, lavic stone, green guatamala marble, green Ischian Tufo (Various dimensions).

Single channel video (4:12 min)

A series of objects cut or and sculpted in stone, working with the notion of gathering and the haptonomic . Each object is made to contain and carry an element, a phenomenon, or even a secret, around which we meet and share.

The stones are recuperated blocks discarded by marble retailers as unusable because of various defaults.

The video, Accretion, touches deep questions related to the sustainability of the object, of producing and consuming. It is an invitation to grow sympathy with the more-than-human, by showing the reflections of a woman and her relation between herself and the earth.

Press by Antonella Palladino for ArTribune

Oggetti Paradossali
On-going research
Assemblage
2021-

Washi paper, cords, light bulbs. Recuperated onyx, lavic stone, green guatamala marble, green Ischian Tufo (Various dimensions).

Lamps, objects, sculptures exploring the notion of light structured through the meeting between the opposing materials of stone and paper. The stones are recuperated blocks discarded by the marble industry as unusable because of various “defaults”.

Fields of Ashes
Performance
Sound installation
Casa Vettese-Donati, Mulazzo (IT)
2021-2022

Earth, ashes, clay, people, time, 25x15m.

Single channel video (8:41 min.)

12 urn-objects/sculptures made during a residency in Via Farini, 2021, were placed in homes around Milan. Following a research on the films of Claire Denis, and queer theories on animism, touch and intimacy from new materialists such as Karen Barad and Mel Y Chen, the urn-sculptures became subject for an examination of the tension between object, human and space. To finalise the project, the sculptures were brought to a field were each sculpture was placed into an excavation in the ground, to stay and perform an act of deterioration for the succeeding 12 months.

A 3 hour sound piece was installed at the initiation of the year-long urn performance, presenting to the audience the various sounds recorded from the inside of the urns in domestic spaces around Milan. The installation works with the idea of object memory, approached through acoustics as a remaining artefact within the artefact - a sonic architecture, connecting objects, landscapes and bodies through frequencies and vibrations.

Video in collaboration with Federicco Fenucci

Fields of Ashes
Residency
Exhibition
Sound
Via Farini in Residence, Milano (IT)
2021

Ashes, unfired clay
Various dimensions

12 urn-objects/sculptures made during a residency in Via Farini, 2021, were placed in homes around Milan. The urn-sculptures became subject for an examination of the tension between object, human and space.

Observations were carried out across the mediums of photograph, film and sound recording, following the relation between the sculptures and their shifting surroundings. Sounds were recorded from the inside of the urns in domestic spaces around Milan.

The project works with the idea of object memory, approached through acoustics as a remaining artefact within the artefact - a sonic architecture, connecting objects, landscapes and bodies through frequencies and vibrations.

Press by Tommaso Pagani for ATP diary

Carcel d’Oro
Landscape, 300 m2.
Chile 2018-2021

The site-specific project works with the notion of entropy through an embodied elaboration of the soil.

The unknown landscape was approached with the attempt to read the landscape through a logic of grids, construction, and planning: Excavation of 16 negative sculptures, or earth samples. Construction of 3 columns as the manifestation of an architecture exploring the immature ruin.

After two months of working the ground with simple tools (hands, bodies, kitchen knife, shovel, buckets) the place was left to grow back into itself, recorded by a hired photographer who would return each month to registrer the changes in image.

Photos by Elina Zampetakis

Press by Kaark Magazine.