Mud Agents
Fired clay from the salt marches at the Wadden Sea, slumped glass, steel, wax
Photos: Runa Halleraker
(...) One of the places full of traces and signs of life is the Wadden Sea, a part of the North Sea that lies between the Frisian Islands and the mainlands of the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken system of tidal flats and mudflats in the world, where natural processes largely go undisturbed. It is also the place where Gunnhild Torgersen finds materials and inspiration in her search for the intersection between living organisms and non-living matter.
(....) In Mud Agents, Gunnhild Torgersen invites viewers to an exhibition that explores border zones. She collects clay from the Wadden Sea, where constant changes in sea level due to tides create a unique ecosystem that must withstand extreme differences between wet and dry conditions. The unique conditions for life here are also reflected in the clay itself, where strange, somewhat inexplicable things happen.
(...) Several of the sculptures contain an embedded piece of coloured glass with holes; rather than a container that holds onto something, Torgersen allows here for a flow both in and out, a vortex that can initiate processes leading to life and open up possibilities for life to flow to new places and transform into new versions of itself.
