At the Edge of Fate, On the Brink of Primordial Time (August- September 2026)

There is an old myth about an island in the North Atlantic. The island appears on early maps under the name Urdabryn, though in later oceanographic reports it is often written as Urdbryn or Urdrand. Several interpretations have been made regarding the meaning and origin of its name. The two most widely accepted suggest that it means either "at the edge of fate" or "on the brink of primordial time" (cf. Urðr, the Old Norse goddess of fate who governs the past).

The island lies isolated from human contact,­ and only two ships are said to have reached its shores. These expeditions are the only ones that have been documented, although certain older nautical charts appear to suggest earlier landings.

Despite this isolation, a limited body of scientific material about the place exists. Research has been conducted remotely through satellite observations, oceanographic measurements, and analyses of material that has broken away from the island and been carried off by ocean currents. Owing to its isolation, the island’s flora and fauna appear to have evolved without human influence. Several studies suggest that both animal and plant life exhibit forms of conscious intelligence estimated to be up to five times more complex than their counterparts in our biosphere. In a number of scientific papers, researchers have used the term animism to describe the phenomenon. The term has, however, been criticised by ecotheologians and other theorists, since it presupposes a human framework of interpretation. Studies in philosophy of mind and ontology have therefore proposed that the existence of things, their being, is understood in a radically different way on Urdabryn than within our own reality. Here, phenomena emerge through frequencies between different forms of being. These frequencies set bodies in motion, and when a larger biomass begins to move, the contours of what we would call reality emerge. An object, a body, or even an entire community (the scale appears to depend on the reach of the frequencies) exists only by virtue of its movement. When that movement ceases, its form dissolves once more from the plane of consciousness. Thus, it is the collective force that gives shape to reality on Urdabryn.

Life forms composed largely of water, such as certain species of cucumbers, jellyfish, and algae, appear to possess distinct organisational advantages. Some observations therefore suggest that the island’s ecology is not entirely free from hierarchies. The language attributed to the island lacks words for identity or materiality. However, seventeen synonyms for the concept of function have been identified, a term through which both physical and non-physical forms of being appear to be understood.

The myth of Urdabryn also tells of a material archive, which may seem remarkable in a place where the very concept of materiality has no linguistic equivalent. The upper levels of the archive are said to be organised according to functions and thus bear resemblance to the ways in which humans categorise matter. Because function is an exceptionally nuanced concept within this context, the archive forms an intricate system of levels, channels, and passageways whose internal divisions do not follow any logic directly recognizable to us. In the archive’s lowerlayers, however, materials are organised according to their constituent components. To a human observer, this arrangement may appear entirely chaotic. By this logic, for example, a nettle might be placed beside a stone, as both contain large amounts of silicon.

The myth also recounts an expedition of palaeontologists who once travelled to the island to study its biological history. According to the story, the expedition was swallowed by the bedrock and subsequently integrated into the island’s geological time. On several occasions, material has washed ashore along the southern coast of the Faroe Islands that resembles neither known geological nor biological formations. Researchers have had significant difficulty dating this material despite extensive attempts using radiometric methods. When using rubidium–strontium dating, normally applied to metamorphic rocks, isotopic decay proved so slight that it fell well below measurable levels, seemingly ruling out most minerals. When carbon-14 dating was used instead, analyses revealed carbon concentrations so low that the material could not plausibly be classified as organic. As one possible, if reluctantly proposed, explanation, a research team referred to the myth of the lost expedition: that something in the encounter between human time and geological time may have given rise to a material that does not fully belong to either of these orders.
In a technical appendix, it is noted that certain isotopic ratios within the material correspond to proportions normally found in human bone tissue. The observation is followed by the comment: "likely contamination."

Welcome.

The project was initiated in 2023 to be placed at the Åbo Academy in Turku, Finland. It is based on the archaeological excavation report conducted as part of the preparatory work for the construction of the university’s new building, Astra.

Visually, the sculpture takes the form of a block of sedimentary rock extracted from the ground, subsequently cut into four equal sections and separated from one another. Embedded within the walls of the blocks are, amongst other objects, replicas of artefacts found during the archaeological work, enlarged in scale. Along the sediments at the top of the sculpture runs a burnt layer of ash, referencing the Great Fire of Turku in 1827 where large parts of the city burnt down.

The work functions as a passage leading up to a series of landings where students can pause and rest. The title plays on the double meaning of a passage: both a physical passageway and the passage of time.

The work was generously commissioned by Åbo Akademi University Foundation

A 4 x 2 meter façade relief installed in central Örebro, comissioned by ArtPlatform Sweden and Örebro Bostäder.

The work is mounted in the Old Center, right in the heart of the city — an area that has been inhabited since the 18th century. Over the years, the neighborhood has gone through many transformations: it has housed, among other things, a medicinal garden, a coaching inn for carriage drivers, and a food market. Today, it houses a newly built residential area.

On the other side of the adjacent river, Svartån, stand two magnificent oak trees reflected in the water. While researching the piece, I came across photographs of the oaks from the turn of the last century in the county museum’s photo archive. Already then, they were several hundred years old.

The work depicts the two oaks and their reflection in the water. The reflection is a negative cast of the upper tree, and can also evoke associations with roots and the underworld.

The piece is intended as a reminder of the permanence and steadfastness the trees represent within the ever-changing character of the area. Installed high above our heads, the work, much like the oaks themselves, looks down on us with a quiet sense of watchfulness.

Black and white photo by Samuel Lindskog (1872-1953). With help from Örebro Länsmuseum.

The exhibition title, For Future Reference, refers to the vast records of information preserved within nature’s material archive and the exhibition comprises three series of works that explore different manifestations of geological and natural processes and their relationship to human presence and activity.

The first series consists of reliefs depicting human bodies caught mid-movement, their gestures frozen in the manner of fossils embedded in rock. They are juxtaposed with impressions of molluscs and other familiar fossil forms, placing human bodies and geological traces within the same material landscape. The reliefs depict different acts of engagement with geological matter, from examining and extracting to casting and transforming. Fossilisation becomes a metaphor for our entangled relationship with geology—as something we are materially bound to, yet continually extract, shape and seek to control.

The second series is a cast intarsia depicting a volcanic landscape, with instruments and equipment used to monitor volcanic activity embedded within it. 

The last series differs in material and consists of intarsias made from fungus-infected beech wood found along the coastline of Møns Klint. The fungus has produced intricate, marbled patterns throughout the wood, resembling maps and revealing an internal landscape shaped by a living organism.

A series of reliefs depicting human bodies caught mid-movement, their gestures frozen in the manner of fossils embedded in rock. They are juxtaposed with impressions of molluscs and other familiar fossil forms, placing human bodies and geological traces within the same material landscape.

The reliefs depict acts of engagement with geological matter: one shows a paleontologist carefully examining the surface of a fossil with a brush; the other is a self-portrait of the artist casting what appears to be a mineral-based material. 

The work uses fossilisation as a metaphor for our entangled relationship with geological matter—both as something we are materially bound to and as something we continually extract, shape and seek to control.

The artwork occupies a three-storey atrium at the University Library of Stockholm, Sweden, and, as the title suggests, tells the story of how diatoms, algae with silica shells, sediment and transform into the rock known as diatomite.

When diatoms die, they sink to the ocean floor, where they accumulate and eventually form this porous rock. Algae becomes rock. The Bodélé Depression in central Africa, the remnant of an ancient evaporated lake, is rich in diatomite. Strong winds carry dust from its porous sediments across the Atlantic Ocean to the Amazon basin, where it provides an important source of phosphorus to the otherwise phosphorus-poor soils of the rainforest.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand” is a famous line from a poem by William Blake, written in 1803. It suggests how even the smallest fragment of matter can contain traces of the vast material processes it has passed through over time: from cosmic dust, to rock, to sand. The work moves between scales, from the microscopic structure of a single diatom to the movement of dust across continents, bringing seemingly distant phenomena into relation through the movement and transformation of matter.

The narrative begins on the ground floor, where the viewer encounters a block of stone bearing reliefs depicting enlarged diatoms. Turning the corner, the viewer discovers that the block is not a solid piece of rock, but a cast façade constructed around a wooden framework. This play between appearance and material reality forms part of my ongoing investigation into material hierarchies and processes of transformation and refinement.

On the second floor, the wooden construction becomes a framework for two double-sided reliefs, alternating between positive and negative forms. A body pours a liquid into its mirrored image, forming a closed circle; a figure for cycles of matter and transformation.

On the top floor, a framed, enlarged diatom is rendered in clay.

The exhibition Towards Another World, 25 years of Contemporary Art showcases a curated selection of Stena Foundation’s cultural scholarship recipients over the past twenty-five years. Curated by Magnus af Petersens with participating artists Katarina Andersson, Lotta Antonsson, Jonas Dahlberg, Nathalie Djurberg/Hans Berg, Andreas Eriksson, Jens Fänge, Hilda Hellström, Henrik Håkansson, Axel Karlsson Rixon, Kent Lindfors, Jenny Magnusson, Mandana Moghaddam, Ida-Lovisa Rudolfsson och Jörgen Svensson.

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.

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. 

A site-specific flooring commissioned for the newly built extension of the Hallands Museum of Art in Sweden.

The older part of the museum, built in the 1930s, features a limestone floor rich with fossils. As an integral part of the museum’s educational programme, guided tours have explored these fossils, using them as a starting point for conversations about deep time, geological processes and cycles.

Originally established as a county museum and later transformed into an art museum, the institution also houses an extensive collection of historical artefacts, including objects dating from the Stone Age and Iron Age.

Taking the floor itself as my canvas, I brought these two histories together: the geological history embedded in the museum’s architecture and the human history represented in its collection. Six large excavations were cut into the new floor, each containing a cast replica of an archaeological object from the museum’s collection.

Monoliths resembling core samples or diagrams over Earth's crust.

Inbetween the stratified layers of acrylic plaster, the first, made for The Plinth Project, 2016, consists of inlays depicting different understandings about the creation of earth.
The second one, made for Chart Art Fair 2023, contains fossils and branches stuck inside the strata. 

A project conceived during Residency In Nature in Småland, Sweden.

The work The Asynjas (Old Norse goddess) takes its point of departure in Blenda, a legendary female figure associated with Värend in Småland. According to the legend, which is set in a distant and largely undocumented past, Blenda led the women of Värend in defending the region while the men were away fighting in Norway.

When a Danish army invaded Värend, Blenda is said to have gathered the local women and invited the soldiers to a feast. Once the soldiers had fallen into a drunken sleep, the women attacked and defeated them.

After the battle, the women are said to have entered Lake Åsnen to wash the blood from their bodies. Here, according to the legend, they also performed fertility rites—rituals supposedly integral to the lives of local women at the time.

The story was recorded by Petter Rudebeck in Smålendske antiqviteter in 1691, although it is unclear to what extent his account drew on older local traditions and to what extent the story was his own construction. For a long period, the legend was treated as historical fact and incorporated into serious historical writing. Its traces can still be found in the landscape: local place names such as Blodberget, Blodviken and Skägglösa allude to the story, allowing myth to seep into and become part of everyday reality.

With the idea that both the legend and the lived experiences of the women who inhabited this landscape might be materially embedded in the local earth, I created two water sculptures from gault clay sourced near the supposed location of the feast. The clay was formed into two fleshy, organic shapes and fired, before being placed to float on the surface of the water—part object, part body, part relic.

An exhibition at the Gothenburg Museum of Art following my receipt of the Stena Foundation’s Cultural Scholarship in 2014.

The exhibition comprises works on loan as well as two newly produced works, Pressure I and Pressure II, made from anthracite, a form of carbon. The sculptures are constructed using the classical Roman arch technique, which was developed, among other applications, for the construction of aqueducts. The technique relies on transforming vertical pressure (gravity) into lateral forces that are channelled down into the foundations.

Anthracite is the highest metamorphic grade of coal. The sculptures seek to enable the viewer to physically experience the weight and pressure between the blocks of anthracite, thereby evoking a sense of the immense forces that also generate metamorphosis within the Earth’s bedrock.

A commission for the crystal manufacturer Swarovski, developed for their exhibition at the Design Museum in London in 2012.

The project takes its point of departure in the dramatic landscape of the Tyrolean Alps, where the Swarovski headquarters have been located since the company was founded in 1895. With roots in Bohemia and its long tradition of glass and crystal craftsmanship, company founder Daniel Swarovski relocated to the small mountain village of Wattens, where the abundant hydropower enabled him to develop his crystal-cutting technology undesturbed. From this remote Alpine setting, Swarovski grew into a major supplier of crystal beads to the flourishing fashion industry of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe.

Interested in the monument as an architectural form imbued with the stories of lives lived, I created The Monument: two identical, mirrored forms joined together. One is cast in stratified acrylic plaster, while the other is made entirely from crystal, pushing Swarovski’s manufacturing capabilities to create what was, at the time, their largest solid crystal piece to date. The form was conceived through a combination of Google Earth, 3D modelling and CNC milling, translating the contours of the surrounding mountain landscape into an abstract architectural volume.

The concealed mountains evoke a sense of myth and mystery. The sculpture was accompanied by a three-channel film presenting a fictional narrative set in the mountains. Across three screens, a group of figures move through a loosely defined line of production, quarrying rock and performing a series of repetitive, ambiguous tasks. The film creates a parallel world in which the relationship between landscape, labour and material becomes deliberately elusive.

Director of Photography: Wai Ming Ng.

Graduation project from Royal College of Art in 2012. The project unfolds at the intersection of the powerful forces of nature and those shaped by human intervention. It consists of five serving vessels made from soil contaminated by radioactive fallout in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

In 2011, a tsunami struck the coast of Fukushima, Japan, triggering a catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located along the coastline. The land was contaminated and the area evacuated. I collected soil from abandoned agricultural land within the Fukushima exclusion zone, a landscape profoundly altered by the aftermath of the disaster. The five vessels bear typologies that reference local produce and agricultural traditions that could no longer be cultivated on the contaminated land.

The vessels are accompanied by a 12-minute documentary depicting the everyday life of farmer Naoto Matsumura, a local of Fukushima who, at the time of the project, had chosen to remain in the evacuated area.

The project explores our relationship to nature and her forces, and whether artefacts can be constructed in such a way that their materiality carries an extensive and complex narrative, transforming them into objects that are both charged and mythologised.

The vessels do not emit radiation, as the soil was excavated from approximately 20 cm below the ground surface.