John Jakobsson artist

Who are you?

I am a sculptor and work from my studio on Gotland. I am 36 years old and have studied Ceramics and Glass at University of Arts, Craft & Design (Konstfack) in Stockholm. As a sculptor, I move freely between the different materials that my ideas require.

What are your thoughts about the concept of “symbiosis”?

What interests me most about the concept of symbiosis is how man as a species cannot accept his role in a larger biological context. That we are dependent on maintaining a balance and a symbiotic relationship with the ecological system in order to continue as a species. At the same time, the task seems impossible because much of what humanity strives for often leads us away from this balance. The truth is perhaps that nature does not need us at all but finds new ways to exist within itself, completely without our intervention.

How can this be linked to your practice?

My work is often about creating meaning in the knowledge gaps that I think I discover in the prevailing worldview. What is the norm in what is considered the established worldview? Who has the interpretive precedence when it comes to collecting information that shapes our existence? What is the role of an artist in a world where facts are also drowned in rivers of information where algorithms and fake news shape our view of the world around us? For these reasons I am interested in pseudosciences such as cryptozoology which is very little evidence-based, but at the same time so rich in its narrative. I therefore create different beings and lifeforms that in their physical form are directly impossible. At least from what we know, or rather what we think we know.