En värkande vakande björn
wood, tinn, bones, feathers, 2023
With the help of the forest, Elin Magnusson examines the meaning of being human. While the trees provide her with material, the animals often act as a link between the human intellect and the inexplicable thing we can call the soul. The deer connects the wordless and fantastic belonging to a landscape in obscurity with an enlightened everyday life defined by science. The buzzard with outstretched wings and exposed skull becomes a bridge between life and death. Together, they embody curiosity and respect for what we don't know about ourselves or our surroundings.
Norrköpings konstforum presents the exhibition En värkande vakande björn (An aching watchful bear) which mostly consists of new works created based on the experience of having a child. To love an adult is to be vulnerable. It is a loss of control to stand in one's love without a valid contract that it will be reciprocated as long as it is desired. Loving a child means completely letting go of parts of yourself and letting them wander on. To die. It is a violent separation from the ego that takes place during childbirth, at the same time that you meet the new life. As soon as the child leaves the border country, the conditions for the parent's life are rewritten. The membranes between the extremes of life are suddenly thinner and the heart of the one who carried the child in the womb has moved out and is now outside the body.
Tin has played a central role in the work, with its low melting point and brilliant composition of molecules that can be melted again and again without losing its material nature. Everything remains the same and at the same time completely new, all the time. The work Barnet (The Child) spills out over the floor and seems to have frozen in the middle of a movement. As an attempt to catch what is meant to slip out of your hands, it lies there like a frozen kiss of water. Being a mother is not about keeping and preserving but about slowly, slowly letting go in love.
On a sapphire blue podium you find the work Fadern sonen, anden och den heliga modern (The Father, the Son, the Spirit and the Holy Mother). The work consists of a huge four-leaf clover and carefully cast links that have been put together to form a chain. Further into the room are three tree sculptures. The artist calls them bears and they watch over the room.
