Interview Sara Ekholm Eriksson

YM: You work mainly with sculptural installations in materials such as stone, water and glass. Tell me about your relationship to these materials? 

SEE: I’m drawn to natural materials and feel that water, glass and stone have a lot in common. Sand can become glass, and stone is polished by water, they need each other to exist, change, and to be refined and filtered. They are also natural resources, they consist of minerals that are found in our bodies. I prefer a hands-on approach to materials, because I feel that the physical process gives me ideas, insights, and that the materials in themselves inspire or resist. This generates meaning and new perspectives.

YM: You also have an interdisciplinary approach, working with researchers and exploring the boundaries between natural and artificial materials. What makes these collaborations important to you?

SEE: Being invited to share someone else’s perspective on the world is incredibly rewarding. In my art, I often work with researchers but also with musicians, art historians and others. I find that interdisciplinary collaborations with professionals active in other fields gives my artistic practice a contemporary connection, and access to contexts where it would not normally be included. I appreciate the encounter this enables between traditional crafts and modern and innovative materials and techniques.

YM: What inspires you to explore man’s relationship to nature in your art?

SEE: Through my practice, I try to break up traditional ways of seeing nature, for instance by not regarding nature as separate from mankind. I am interested in how ecosystems work and how we alter them, with or without intention. In the same way that species are linked and affect each other in an ecosystem, I want my art to make visible how materials are connected and related. I see materials and the site-specific element in my art as a possibility to enhance the relationship between them, and to create and link them to a larger context, where art can influence and spark new ways of thinking.

Sara Ekholm Eriksson. Photo: Christofer Dracke.