Simona Koch

While her residency stay in Jakobstad Simona Koch continues with a series of works under the name „ABIOTISM“.

Abiotic comes from the greek and means “without life”. There are things in the world that are said to not be living and yet they are in motion, can store information and are crucial building blocks for the bodies of creatures. In societies with an animistic view of the world, things such as stones, water, the sun, crystals are believed to have certain powers, capabilities and even a soul. 

In her work „ABIOTISM / Water“ Simona Koch investigates the behavior of water and its ability to reflect the mode of the climate and the other elements (wind, earth and fire). In early greek nature philosophy the idea arised that everything has its origin in the four elements. Thales of Milet even thought that water was the prime matter. Later, Empodokles established the theory of the classical elements.

With another work (Captured Abiotism) she is trying to capture these abiotic aspects of nature, that can be found for example in reflections, certain constellations or movements with a self-made pinhole camera.

www.en-bloc.de, www.abiotismus.de

Captions to the images:

ABIOTISM 7 / Water, 2017

Captured Abiotism #2, 2016

Intrusive or extrusive? Christoph Mügge

Our guest artist from November (2016) to April (2017) has been (or still is) Christoph Mügge.

His first project was to start working for an installation at Galleri Gro. The exhibition "Genomgångsledsblockeringsöppning" (directly translated into something like "Passage way direction blocking opening") opened in January. 

The installation acted as some organic "being", totally taking control over its surroundings both physically and psychologically.

As a contribution to various political and cultural discourses, the work acquired a conceptual relevance and acted as some sort of almost scientific visualisation of several burning topics in contemporary society. 

Whether this is how art (or subcultures - good or bad) lives and spreads (or are seen as) can perhaps remain unwritten in this post. However the intrusive - or extrusive - work did indeed cause a certain amount of questions and even irritation to some degree. Thus it effectively put its finger on several issues connected to contemporary [economical, environmental and ethical] mindsets.

More about Christoph Mügge and his work, is found on his website.