Conversation with Ida Retz Wessberg
Following her first solo exhibition “Exhale” we had a conversation with Ida Retz Wessberg about her thoughts surrounding the exhibition, as well as the current social climate during Covid time.
Ida, we started planning your exhibition EXHALE almost one year ago. How do you feel about the fact that you almost predicted this airborne virus crisis and that the lockdown came just a couple of weeks after the exhibition opening?
- I was, like everyone else hugely surprised that the pandemic suddenly came. My exhibition EXHALE at SIRIN Gallery all revolved around air, breathing and ventilation. For example, there is a text in one of my bubble wrap works, which says that you can put on a mask, where you can inhale fresh air - to stay or while on the go. The significance of this work has suddenly changed after Corona erupted. Although the texts were produced in October 2019 and are actually inspired by online companies that sell clean mountain air in bottles, as a viewer you will read into them differently in this new situation and reality. As a sculptor, I am interested in air and how to use air as a sculptural material. It was a fantastic vernissage of EXHALE - and I'm glad I managed to celebrate the exhibition in a carefree atmosphere before the lockdown of the whole community. I think in the future we will continue to see a lot of vernissages - but maybe they will not be as loose and festive as before Corona…
Air is one of your favourite materials and subjects, did you change your relationship to it now during the pandemic?
- The fact that air can carry "invisible" potential dangers such as viruses, was already part of the narrative I work with. The air is both good (and vital) and at the same time it can be "evil" or harmful (spreading viruses, pollution or forest fires).
In my works I want to question the condition of air and respiration for all living beings and organisms. This topic has only become more relevant to me since the pandemic precisely emphasized this relationship. Hopefully the new experiences we have gained with the pandemic will also help us to understand how humans, animals and plants are connected to this. What I personally experienced during the lockdown was being alone in my own company for so long. My attention shifted far more to the body and the basic needs, as well as sounds in the apartment, or the sound of my own breathing. While it was a bit strange to have to cancel all appointments, it also allowed for being more present at the moment. Lockdown gave me time to sense and appreciate having the time to go for a long walk in the fresh air.
If you use air as a comparison, how long do you develop a project inside before you “exhale” and release it in a material form? Using yoga terminology would you compare it to a long inhale and a short “ha” exhale or a quick illuminating idea and a long soothing exhale?
- It's a fun question… -I think the time from when I get an idea to me doing a piece of work varies a lot. Sometimes the works occur while I am experimenting, without me actually having an intention or predetermined plan. Other times, I plan the process carefully, then execute it.
The folds and wrinkles in your sculpture bring to mind the idea of an unmade bed, something intimate, and then to the wrinkles and folds on an ageing human body. And all those marks and sewing threads look like a scar tissue, acquired outside of the comfort of a bed. Is it similar for you to the process of “leaving your old skin” and creating a new one when you produce the works?
- I think one of the reasons I'm interested in encapsulated air in clothing and packaging comes from reflections on protecting a body or object. For example, the visible process traces where sewing thread is still embedded in the casting, as a reminder of the work of the hand. I love making castings or sewing by hand because I kind of forget myself in the process. When the body has to perform or you have to concentrate, you have to put all your focus on this action. I want the works to give the viewer a sense of fragility and the presence and time I am trying to give the works.
Like inhaling and exhaling, your work offers the possibility of observation from a distance, but also has a lot of small details which one can only see when coming very close to the surface of the sculpture. Is there a third quality that you wanted the viewer to experience, how you would describe it?
- I would sometimes wish the viewer could feel the work physically. It might get a little dirty, but I often think about the combination of the different surfaces in my sculptures. I hope that, in addition to the visible, there is a bodily presence or bodily absence in the works. That they are made of a body and that they are read by a body. As a sculptor, I often work with references to other artists or conceptual thinking. But these references are not necessarily a criterion for understanding the work. I believe that as a viewer you can still get a lot out of a physical encounter with the work without being an art historian, that as a spectator, no matter who you are, you can sense the work or the amount of consideration in this artwork.
What has the lockdown experience make you think about your artist practice or your life in general? Have you come out of it as a different person, how did it change you?
- I thought a lot about how other artists, through hard times in history, have remained artists and have continued to work with their art under difficult conditions. And that one still does this. I was extremely relieved that I managed to complete the opening of EXHALE, which I had been working on for a long time. But it was also a surprising relief to me that everyone was suddenly forced to drop a high work pace. I will use this experience in the future and carry the experience with me.
What “Exhale” means for you, when do you feel the moment that you can finally “exhale”?
- When a piece of work is finished, when I cycle home in the evening or when an exhibition is set up. I exhale when I try to do yoga or when I sit in my family's allotment garden house…
Translated from Danish.