For his exhibition at Fiberspace, Petter Hellsing puts materials in focus and is looking for ways to let them speak based on their own premises. What can a conversation between man and material look like? The tool here becomes a transitional object, a tool that extends the body to the world and puts it in relation to other forces. The bodily action and the resistance in the material is crucial to reaching an understanding beyond the power of thought.

As Hellsing sees it, something has happened in the world and we are facing a renewed relationship to materials. It is no longer possible to regard the world around us as inanimate matter. Perhaps things have their own agenda. In any case, we can not ignore the ecological consequences of our lack of attentiveness. An honest encounter with materials awakens deep physical memories in most of us. A hand in sheep's wool, the weight of a stone or a knife's blade carving into wood, all bear the promise of creation that makes us greater as human beings. The making of an object is not just a relational human act, but the work of the hand is also an inward dialogue, between the maker, the viewer and the material.

Annie Johansson’s artistic practice is concerned with finding the decisive moment when the materiality of the objects she creates reverberates within the body of the viewer, where the observation and contemplation of the art, congers a bodily experience. Johansson works intuitively, step by step, creating collaboration between her body and the material until the material has become its own body - an object. She works in dialogue with the nature of the material; how it behaves under the laws of gravity, how the room and the effects of light influence it. It is about the intimacy of textiles and how they convey a sense of humanity and physicality. She is in search for that which allows for an awareness of one’s body and one’s inner. Working with silk, wool and nylon, tufting is an important technique in Johansson’s work, born out of her longing to create in a more physical and hands-on way. A longing that is also about working in a large format and encountering something bigger than one’s own body, a thought that textiles can be intimate while being monumental.