Åsa Jungnelius

A bowl, a candlestick or a pair of shoes are seen in general as being there for us. They normally have a certain function and incite our sense of beauty. We cast out or reject the ugly objects. Perhaps we laugh at them.

Åsa Jungnelius’ art triggers an entirely different process in us. Objects undermine authorities and establish new relationships. The question of function still arises, but it is quickly subordinated to the demand that the objects place on us. Many of these objects seem to have come into being with a clear purpose. A bowl for dipping crisps in or a candlestick for lighting up the room. But they are also at the same time simply themselves – artworks in their own right.

The encounter with Jungnelius’ work can therefore be a little confusing at first. The pieces unhinge us from our habitual representations and we are forced to become agents. The objects gaze back at us, as if they want to make us think about who we are, how we relate to ourselves and to the world surrounding us.

The works in the exhibition were crafted in Småland’s Kingdom of Crystal. Glassworks are traditionally seen as masculine environments and Jungnelius, with her art, comments on the areas’s multifaceted industrial history. At the same time as there is a whole culture around the production of glass objects, the raw materials can be found in the wild. Glass is a material at once heavy and volatile, sharp and soft, solid and fragile. Still Jungnelius knows how to extend the possible uses of glass by placing it in relation to other materials.

In this exhibition Jungnelius exhibits works which tell us about the society we live in through a combination of processed and everyday materials. Bone, wood and fur meet glass, marble, and metal to create fetishized handmade objects containing stories. The sculptures proceed on a spiritual journey through an abandoned well in Mosahultagöl in Ljuder’s parish in Småland, a place that Åsa has returned to during a period of several years within the frame of the elastic, nomadic site-specific art project Residence-in-Nature.

In Jungnelius’ assembled objects, different time periods and places meet: town, industry, forest, equality, lust and struggle. But the one material reappearing in each object is glass. Surrounding us every day are enormous amounts of this transparent surface, and everywhere it offers us a transmission from vision to reverie.

Text: Peter Bergman

Åsa Jungnelius (b 1975, lives and works in Månsamåla, Småland, and in Stockholm) is educated (MFA) and today a senior lecturer at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. Jungnelius is artistic director for Residence-In-Nature and is presently working on a public art commission, The Shell, for a new underground station in Hagastaden, Stockholm. Jungnelius is represented in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Röhsska Museet and the Public Art Agency Sweden. She was appointed Designer of the Year 2019 by the magazine Form.

Artifacts: The Origin of Things is a continuation of Jungnelius’ exhibition at Fullersta Gård 2018.

The exhibition is produced within the framework of the Nya Småland exhibition programme 2019–2020, the purpose of which is to rethink and redefine the political, social and aesthetic landscape of Småland.

Thanks to: Swedish Arts Council, Region Jönköping County, Municipality of Värnamo and Vandalorum Partners: Hamrin, Liljedahl, Svenstig

^{Photo: John Nelander}