Fluidity: Swedish Identity in Glass Exhibition 2024
The American Swedish Institute
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Snölykta
Glass lantern and projection
2022
Glass , projected family film.
This piece was inspired by Snölykta the traditional Swedish winter lanterns made from snowball pyramids surrounding a candle. These lanterns were often used to light the way home during the long, dark winters of rural Sweden, creating paths of light in the snow-covered landscapes. In my childhood, they represented not only a source of illumination but also a connection to the places and people that shaped me. The form of these lanterns, combined with home videos from my time growing up in both Sweden and Minneapolis, expresses the experience of being suspended between two worlds—at once belonging to both yet never fully fitting into either. This work is a meditation on home, vulnerability, and loss, particularly in the wake of losing both my parents at a young age.
The lanterns illuminate the fragility of family, memory, and identity, while also expressing the ripple effects that follow when the pieces of oneself, bound in these relationships, are lost. Through these sculptures, I explore the tension between light and darkness, presence and absence, and the fleeting moments
7 Blommor / 7 flowers
Glass pillow
2022
Glass , flower ash
A glass pillow casted in a two-part blow mold to create a hollow glass form, which I then filled with flowers collected from seven places I’ve called home. Each flower carries its own history, representing emotions and memories tied to these locations, spaces where I felt solace, acceptance, and celebration. These were spaces where I felt most at ease in my queer and trans identity, where I was not only embraced but celebrated.
Using the technique of Fossil Vitra, I preserved these flowers by turning them into imprints within the glass, fusing their ashes and glass powder together in the kiln. The resulting sculpture becomes a vessel that memorializes these delicate specimens—transforming them from fleeting, fragile life forms into permanent glass relics. The glass pillow itself is a reclaiming of a childhood tradition where, on Swedish Midsommar night, one would place seven flowers beneath their pillow in hopes of dreaming of their future spouse. I take this tradition and reframe it—rather than seeing the flowers as symbols of future romance, the glass pillow becomes a vessel for the exploration of identity, a mirror into my own reflections on queer and trans joy.