For Future Reference

Berg Gallery

Exhibition

2023

Photo: Sanna Argus Tirén

Time

Etage Projects

Chart Art Fair

2023

Untitled

Andy's Gallery

Market Art Fair

2023

Sanna Tirén

Towards another world

Gothenburg Museum of Art

Group Exhibition

2021

The Way an Algae Transforms into a Rock

Stockholm University Library

Public Comission

2021

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand” is a famous line the poet William Blake wrote in 1803, which describes how even the smallest grain of sand can report about the material flows it has been through over the course of its life. From cosmic dust, to rock, to sand. 
 

The artwork sits in a three story atrium at the University Library of Stockholm, Sweden and tells us about diatoms, a silica-covered algae. The narrative starts by the bottom floor. Here, the viewer meets a block of stone with reliefs of diatoms. When diatoms die, they fall down on the ocean floor, where they eventually sediment into the porous rock called diatomite. Algae transforms into rock. If the viewer turns around the corner, they will notice that the block in fact isn't solid, but cast on a wooden construction. It creates the illusory effect of a set design, a way of emphasizing a material deconstruction that both attempts to break down and build up a conception of reality. 

On the second floor of the atrium the wooden construction becomes a framework for reliefs. A body pours a liquid into a mirror image, creating a figure of a closed circle and a flow.  
The Bodélé desert in central Africa, an ancient evaporated sea, consists of diatomite. Enduring winds brings dust from the porous rock over the Atlantic to the Amazon, a nutritious process which is shown to be a precondition for the survival of the rainforest. The microcosmos of the diatoms conspires with the macrocosmos of the winds in a natural cycle. 

By the top floor you will find a framed, enlarged diatom in clay.  

“In every world thousands of worlds are hidden”, wrote the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf in 1941 as a response to William Blake. The artwork encourages us to look for the hidden cycles that can be found around us. A type of nature mysticism that goes all the way back to the origin of Western philosophy and Heraclitus thought ‘panta rhei’ - everything flows.

Photo credit: Jonas Ingerstedt

Perceived Memory, Projected Future

Berg Gallery

Exhibition

2020

January 9 - February 15, 2020 at Berg Gallery Stockholm.
Extract from exhibition text by Magdalena Rozenberg:

In Perceived Memory, Projected Future the spectator steps inside a space that evokes thoughts on our inner sensibility and the way reality can appear to us. It is a form of memory research combined with questions about the future: it is in the union of these two that Hellström sees the present. The chronological timeline is dissolved and the past, the present and the future are here working together and are given a shared space to coexist and interact with one another. This could be seen as a manifestation of Hellström’s idea that the world is in constant transformation with fluid boundaries. It is undoubtedly a fluid concept of reality that Hellström experiments with. Her focus around transformation is being expressed mainly through the use of transformative and malleable materials, making haphazardness an element in the formation of the pieces. Hellström challenges the idea of where a process begins and where it ends. The craft is built on timely procedures where controlled processes meet the unplanned, when a material converts from one form into another, from liquid to solid, or solid to liquid. She plays with our definitions of the present, of the past and of the future, of materiality, of crafts, and of what we usually see as universally absolute. Perceived Memory, Projected Future becomes a demonstration of how to be in this world, one that resists a linear narrative and elevates transformative materials to give them emotional and physical shape.

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Photo credit: Jonas Ingerstedt. Catalogue design by Jacob Grönbech Jensen. Available for purchase through Berg Gallery.

The Blob

ArkDes/Trafikkontoret

Public Commission

2018/ 2020

Combined bollard and bike-stand in white concrete commissioned by ArkDes, Museum of Architecture, Sweden. Later produced for the city of Stockholm's body of transport.
The form is generated through the use of an elastic mould, showcasing the materiality, volume and gravity of the casting compound.

  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom

The Science of Imaginary Solutions

Etage Projects

Exhibition

2019

August 8 - September 28, 2019 at Etage Projects Copenhagen
Extract from exhibition text by Nanna Balslev Strøjer

The exhibition title The Science of Imaginary Solutions is inspired by French writer Alfred Jarry’s (1873–1907) literary trope ‘pataphysics’ - a type of philosophy examining imaginary phenomena existing in a world beyond metaphysics. Originally meant as a canny mockery to the rapid growth of popularisation in the 19th century, Alfred Jarry assigned meaning to the intuitive and the irrational. Subsequently, both Dadaists and Surrealists found inspiration in the quasi-science and artists like Miró and Duchamps joined the group of practitioners praising the irrational, useless, unconscious and the power of the imaginary. In the same manner, pataphysics endows meaning to Hellström by providing a type of terminology to an artistic practice falling outside traditional categories of craft making. By dismantling the conventional categories of material and craft, Hellström has left tradition, and thereby definition. As she is developing new techniques based on the unplanned, creating new realities based on the factitious, pataphysics gives Hellström a vocabulary. 

Hellström explores the poetic and transformative capacities of materials through contrasting narratives and artistic methods. The process of creating, of manipulating and giving form to material, is a continuous confirmation of being and belonging in the world for Hellström. It is a physical and emotional insistence on her own existence, as an artist and living body. The Science of Imaginary Solutions is a demonstration of the energy, poetry and curiosity feeding her practice and visible in the many ways she casts and carves, makes and imagines. Always in process, and refusing to be defined, her works become beautiful hybrids existing in their own right, as imaginary solutions.

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Photo credit: Rosalina Kruse Serup, David Stjernholm. Catalogue designed by Laura Silke

The Spine

Gothenburg

Public Commission

2019

A four meter tall obelisk installed outside Kvibergskolan school in Gothenburg. The spine-like form is generated through the use of an elastic mould, juxtaposing the strict vertical shape with the unruly vertebraes, embodying the agency of the casting compound. The concrete structure has infused copper shavings that are slowly oxidizing, incorporating the notions of time and cycles into the work. The commission explores the many analogies the symbol of a spine contains. Commissioned by Göteborgs Lokalförvaltning. 

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Big Bang and other Explanations

Etage Projects

Exhibition

2016

November 18, 2016 - January 21, 2017. The Plinth Project at Etage Projects Copenhagen

Monolith resembling a core sample or a diagram over Earth's crust. Inlays depicting different understandings about the creation of the world. 

  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom

Photo credit: Åsmund Sollihøgda

The Asynjas

Residence In Nature

Project

2016

A project built around the local legend of Blenda and conceived during Residency In Nature in Småland Sweden. Around the 11-1200s, a band of women from Värend seduced, tricked and killed an army of Danish invaders. After the killing they entered the lake of Åsnen to wash themselves from blood. Here, they are also said to perform fertility rites, a supposedly integral part of the lives of the local women at the time. The legend, invented by Petter Rudebeck in 1691, was long a part of serious history writing and many of the local place-names (f.ex. Blodberget, Blodviken, Skägglösa) allude to the legend. Myth has entered our everyday reality. As if the legend was materialized in the local matter, the two river sculptures are made of gault clay, sourced close to the location of the events. From the clay, two fleshy looking shapes were fired and sat bathing on the surface of the water. 

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Erosional Remnant

Ace Hotel, London

Private Commission

2015

  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom

Photo credit: Peter Guenzel

Stena Stiftelsen Award

Gothenburg Museum of Art

Exhibition

2014

December 6, 2014 – January 6, 2015 at Gothenburg Museum of Art
About the award in Swedish

  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom
  • Hilda Hellstrom

Photo credit: Åsmund Sollihøgda

The Monument

Design Museum London

Exhibition

2012/2014

A commission for the crystal manufacturer Swarovski. Initially developed for an exhibition at the Design Museum London 2012. In 2014 a second edition was produced for Swarovski Wonder Chamber in Innsbruck. The sculpture depicts the topography of the Tyrollean mountains, where the Swarovski head-quarters are located. It was conceived using Google Earth imagery which was transferred into a 3D program and cut out in a cnc-router. The sculpture was accompanied by a film split into three screens. The film, a fictive narrative that vaguely portrays the origin of the sculpture, shows images from the Tyrollean mountains, a limestone quarry and a house interior. Director of photography Wai Ming Ng.

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Photo credit: Wai Ming Ng, Åsmund Sollihøgda

The Materiality of a Natural Disaster

Royal College of Art

Project

2012

The graduation project The Materiality of a Natural Disaster from The Royal College of Art, is a project around a geo-specific, human-inflicted narrative transferred onto local matter. The project takes place a year after the Tohoku Daiichi power plant disaster in Japan, and is a collaboration with local rice farmer Naoto Matsumura, who was determined to stay in the evacuated area. From soil from his unusable rice fields, five muddy vessels with typologies hinting to the local produce, were created. The project's aim was to lead one’s thought to the mythological, to construct allegories to the devastating event. Although being loaded, the vessels did not contain radiation, since the soil was dug up from 40 cm below ground. A 12 minute documentary portraying Matsumura’s everyday life, accompanied the vessels in the exhibition.

 

  • Hilda Hellstrom
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Hilda Hellström’s sculptural practice is built around combining old craft methods with contemporary materials and techniques. Trained in both art and object design, she looks at the symbolic qualities of craft and cultural objects and how they relate to time, value and heritage. 

Being preoccupied with casting techniques, she has a process driven, visceral approach to making and explores her thinking through the material she works on. The material itself appears in her work as storytelling. Her exploration of material, its inherent narratives and latent potentials connects to a type of nature mysticism that deals with nature’s internal life, hidden from man’s eye. Emerging from that, she explores an interest for that which lies enclosed within the lithosphere by referencing both geology and archeology. 

Often with surreal undertones, she conveys natural- and cultural histories alongside personal experiences by interweaving fabulation and fabrication, shape and image making.

 

Hellström graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2012 and has since exhibited at Gothenburg Museum of Art, The British Craft Council, Victoria & Albert Museum London, Tramway Glasgow, London Design Museum, Eskilstuna Konstmuseum, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Röhsska Museet, Art Basel Miami, Shanghai Power Station Art Museum, Daelim Museum South Korea, Design Museo Helsinki amongst other institutions.

Hellström currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

Education

    ◦ MA, Royal College of Art, London 2012

    ◦ BA, Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm 2010

    ◦ Diploma, Gerlesborgs Art School, Stockholm 2007

    ◦ Diploma, La Massana Art School, Barcelona 2004

     

Exhibitions

    Solo & Two-persons exhibitions

    ◦ "For Future Reference", Berg Gallery, SE Stockholm 2023 
    ◦  Marker Art Fair, Andy's Gallery, SE Stockholm 2023
    ◦ “Divers' Love” Enter Art Fair, Berg Gallery Booth 11, DK Copenhagen 2021
    ◦ “Pregnancy Logic” Berg Gallery SE Stockholm 2021
    ◦ “Perecived Memory, Projected Future” Berg Gallery SE Stockholm 2020
    ◦ “The Science of Imaginary Solutions” Etage Projects DK Copenhagen 2019
    ◦ “I do spend time in nature” Berg Gallery SE Stockholm 2017
    ◦ “Stenastiftelsens Art Award” Göteborgs Konstmuseum SE Gothenburg 2014/15
    ◦ “Still it moves” Gallery Bensimon FR Paris 2014
    ◦ “Hilda Hellström x Bec Brittain” Matter US New York 2014
    ◦ “The Monument” Swarovski Wonder Chamber, AU Innsbruck 2013- 2014

    Selected Group Exhibitions


    ◦ Chart Art Fair, Etage Projects, DK Copenhagen 2023
    ◦ “Nested Realities” Pro Artibus Ekenäs FI 2022
    ◦ “Mot en annan värld” Gothenburg Art Museum SE 2021
    ◦ “Public Luxury” Swedish Institute FR Paris 2019 
    ◦ “Public Luxury” Arkdes Architecture Museum, SE Stockholm 2018
    ◦ “5KV” Kvalitar Gallery, CZ Prague 2017
    ◦ “Twelve Tall Tales” (The British Crafts Council) Oriel Davies Gallery IR Wales 2017
    ◦ “Gustavsbergs Konsthall Revisited” Gustavsbergs Konsthall SE Gustavsberg 2017
    ◦ “Room With its own Rules” Chamber NYC US New York 2017
    ◦ “This is Today” Chamber NYC, US New York 2017
    ◦ “The Plinth Project” Etage Projects DK Copenhagen 2016
    ◦ “Chamber NYC booth” Art Basel Miami US Miami Beach 2016
    ◦ “Keep In Touch” Skånes Konstförening SE Malmö 2016
    ◦ “Konsthantverk i Sverige” Eskilstuna Konstmuseum SE Eskilstuna 2016
    ◦ “Residence-In-Nature” Växjö Konsthall SE Växjö 2016
    ◦ “Objects Of Desire” Design Museo Helsinki FI Helsinki 2016
    ◦ “Twelve Tall Tales” The British Craft Council UK London UK 2016
    ◦ “Colour Your Life” Daelim Museum KR Seoul 2016
    ◦ “Sur” Apalazzo Gallery IT Brescia 2016
    ◦ “Eva Bonnier for public Art” Konstakademiet SE Stockholm 2015
    ◦ “Den Nya Kvinnogruppen” Eskilstuna Konstmuseum SE Eskilstuna 2015
    ◦ “Pilsen 2015 – European City of Culture” CZ Pilsen 2015
    ◦ “Radikal Vänskap” Gustavsbergs Konsthall SE Gustavsberg 2015
    ◦ “Samtidsarkeologi” Galleri Format NO Oslo 2015
    ◦ “DNK: Så Därför Kom Vi Hit” Verkstad; Rum för Konst SE Norrköping 2014
    ◦ “Atemporaneo” Apalazzo Gallery IT Brescia 2014
    ◦ “Crafting Narratives“ The British Craft Council UK London 2014
    ◦ “Rum 319” Crystal Gallery SE Stockholm Art Week 2014
    ◦ “Den Nya Kvinnogruppen” Fullersta Gård SE Stockholm 2014
    ◦ “The Future Is Handmade” Kalmar Konstmuseum SE Kalmar 2014
    ◦ “NightTime DreamReal” Power Station Art Museum CN Shanghai 2014
    ◦ “House Style” Tramway UK Glasgow 2014
    ◦ “Mastering Design” Mudac CH Lausanne 2014
    ◦ “Swarovski Digital Crystal” Beijing Design Week CN Beijing 2014
    ◦ “Digital Crystal” Design Museum UK London 2012
    ◦ “Royal College of Art Graduation Show” Royal College of Art Battersea UK London 2012

Exhibition/catalogue text - Perceived Memory, Projected Future
Exhibition/catalogue text - The Science of Imaginary Solutions
Interview with theguardian



 

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