FIBER Festival

From a compass made of iron derived from human placentas to artworks made of drilling residue from mineral extractions in Norway: the works of Cecilia Jonsson shine a new light on raw materials that are fundamental to human existence.

Cecilia Jonsson uses raw materials that are usually seen as wasteful or polluting. She makes site-related artworks that explore the tensions between the mineral domain, human exploitation and environmental politics. 

Johnson’s projects are investigations into the physical and ideological properties of raw materials that are fundamental to human existence. She traces their origins deep in the ground, to their extraction, transformation and global exploitation. Central to her practice, is a challenge of the distinction between subjective and objective notions, by drawing out connections between the arts, sciences, technology, and social-cultural and environmental politics in a contemporary alchemy.

Cecilia Johnson received her MA in Fine Art from the Bergen National Academy of the Arts and the Nordic Sound Art MA program. Her works have been shown at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Natural History in Venice and Edifici Disseny Hub Barcelona. Residencies includes Triangle France, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media, amongst others.

She is the creator of the project The Iron Ring and in 2014 the work was awarded second prize in VIDA 16.0 Art and Artificial Life International Awards. Johnson made the 170 meters’ deep, rock-core drilling artwork for Sonic Acts, Dark Ecology and won the Dutch Bio Art &​ Design Award in 2016.