Interview: Erik Thörnqvist

YM: You have previously expressed a fascination with how abstract ideas are transformed into concrete forms. Can you give an example and explain – what it is about the transformation process that interests you?

ET: There is something mesmerising about how a simple sketch in a sketchbook can be transformed into a real, physical entity, such as a chair. Or how a politician’s rhetoric can result in a housing project that becomes people’s everyday lives. This metamorphosis provides an opportunity to think about what is expressed in our society. At the same time, I am interested in how the repetition of a cemented image of an object can appear neutral and innocent, despite the fact that it hides hierarchies that have influenced both its design and function – much like the dissonance between the idea of a chair and the sensation of actually sitting in it.

YM: You often return to themes of voyeurism and built environments. What is your understanding of the connection between architectural or spatial contexts and the dynamics of looking or being looked at, as they appear in your work?

ET: Queer intimacy has often been relegated to public spaces, but technological and democratic developments increasingly allow these encounters to take place in the home. The typical gay bar or club is often located in an environment that previously housed a business, and it is in these environments that architect Adolf Loos’s ideas about spatial planning and the power of the gaze become particularly evident. With added architectural elements and minimal or non-existent lighting, visitors cruise by concealing and revealing their bodies, creating a game between looking and being looked at. Unlike Loos’s imposing male gaze, the design of the clubs often suggests an ambivalent power structure.

YM: You work on redefining and reinventing the role of ornamentation in designed environments. What is it about ornament that attracts you, and how do you use it as a tool to discuss corporeality and identity?

ET: After the 20th century purge of ornamentation in architecture, I wonder what its relevance is today. I’m obsessed with Josef Hoffmann’s Sitzmaschine chair (1905), which is a mix of protomodernism and ornamentalism – some elements are functional, while others are purely aesthetic. Smooth, white-plastered walls and white tiles are also ornamentation. They embody ideas of sterility and have shaped our view of materiality. I’ve long dreamed of a kitchen in stainless steel with an industrial hose so I could spray everything down – when I started thinking about it, I realised how deeply indoctrinated I am by these mortifying ideals.

Image: Erik Thörnqvist. Photo: Isak Berglund Mattsson-Mårn