Åsa Ersmark Wishing Well


10 September 2010 7 November 2010

Solo exhibition
Project rooms, Färgfabriken


For her exhibition at Färgfabriken, Ersmark has produced unique artworks in the form of sculpture and video. Here among other things she uses the old wishing well as a symbol. But what exactly has happened to the mythical well of the fairytales? In Ersmark’s sculpture Wishing Well something else is surfacing: she is referencing to a used, disposed condom. “I take the casting from a real well, and when it later ends up in an exhibition room, it will lie sagging on the floor and appear as a used condom. The coins in the well will resemble sperm.” Through her art Ersmark is trying to dissolve symbols in what she sees as a feminist work: ”There are so many symbols like man/woman, up/down, north/south that one wants to liberate oneself from. What can one do about these symbols? How can one act and live right without having to reflect all the time? I try, but it’s hard…”

The exhibition will also consist of three newly produced video installations, all in one way or another playing with traditional and famous symbols. The installation room will be experienced as a crossing over two worlds. The question is, where will you finally end up?

About the artist

Åsa Ersmark, born in 1981, graduated from the Royal University College of Fine Arts in 2009 and mainly works with sculpture and video art. At her graduation exhibition in 2009, two highly conspicuous video installations were among the artworks she showed; both of them contained body parts heavily loaded with symbolism- the breast and the phallus. The art of Ersmark is filled with traditional symbols, which under her hands mould into something different.

To contemplate the artwork of Ersmark is to wallow in a wonderland invaded by symbols. Reality is subject to manipulation: things, matters and even existence all have been transformed. Signs are opening, closing, dissolving, coagulating.