Project Description
Laboratoriet is a collaboration between the two artist Kristin Larsson and Evelina Dovsten and The Glass Factory in Boda.
The project consisted of two parts: one production phase and one exhibition phase. The projected started in a shared archive of laboratory glassware, donated from the research institute RISE.
Both me and Evelina have worked with glass for fifteen years, we have the same craft background, we have worked at the same studios and we have studied at the same education at Konstfack. During these years we haven't always worked together, but we have always been there for each other.
Laboratory glassware as a material was new to us both, even though it’s still glass it has a different chemical composition than the glass we are used to work with, which demands entirely different techniques in the making process.
We wanted to see if we could interpret this archive from our own perspectives. What happens when we are not allowed to follow each others practices anymore and instead of using each other as discussion partners we now turn to the visitors of the museum?
We divided the archive between us and then we divided a room into two separate parts. During three weeks we worked side by side of each other but yet separate and hidden from each other, prohibited to talk about or see what the other person was up to.
Our work processes was on the other hand open for the visitors of the museum to follow and they were able to walk between the two rooms to see our work materialize parallel to each other. It was a occasion for the visitor to follow and take part in the artistic process. During this period we had access to the hot shop at The Glass Factory so that we could make additions and alterations to the archive.
The second part of the project, the exhibition phase, started the three weeks later, the 26:th of October. During the opening of the exhibition the division of the room was removed and we could for the first time see the other persons interpretation of the archive.
Laboratoriet was a studie in the artistic expression and the artistic process. A collaborative, non collaborative project.
During the building process we wrote letters to each other that we weren’t aloud to read ourselves but they were posted online for everyone else could follow our thoughts and process.
Read it here: http://www.evelinadovsten.com/laboratoriet/projektdagbok/
My work Extractor Duran is a site specific work. I worked with the conditions that was given to me by the archive, the site, and the staff and visitors of The Glass Factory.
I explored the stereotype that is the crazy scinetist. I approached the lab glass equipment as a puzzle in need of a new assemblage. I have labeled this assemblage, my machine: The Extractor Duran. The machine has the structure of a chain. As you follow the chain along a narrative appears. It becomes all the more chaotic, something has gone horribly wrong and a hazardous substance has spread out in the world. It is a narrative that spans between order and disaster, the sterile and the contaminated.
In addition to the lab glass I have also added parts of free hand blown glass and elements with sugar, salt, borax and pewter.