Silje Figenshou Thoresen / A stick is never to short/too long

SILJE FIGENSHOU THORESEN

Silje Figenshou Thoresen participates with an artist presentation introducing her work.
Location: Rødbanken
Date: 29.09.2022

Silje Figenschou Thoresen (b. 1978 in Kirkenes) is a Kven and Northern Sami artist from Kirkenes in Eastern Finnmark.
She graduated as a furniture designer and interior architect from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and Konstfack in Stockholm. She has exhibited at among other places at Kunstnernes Hus, Kunsthall Trondheim, Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš/ the Sámi Centre for Contemporary Art in Karasjok, Liljevalchs konsthall in Stockholm and has participated at LIAF in 2017.

Artist Statement
I grew up in a design tradition where improvisation is essential. You yourself fix the everyday problems that arise, wether this is a repair, a construction, a small object to keep the door open or a building to keep other objects stored. It might be a cage to dry reindeer hearts or a floating pier built and used by a fishing community. There is a certain flow in these objects, and materials are not changed for aestehetical reasons. If a stick is too long, you find another stick, because who knows when you’ll need that long stick. The stick might be part of a shed, then a fence, then something keeping the door shut. In between it will be stored, and when no longer useful, it will be left to rot.

The aestehetical outcome of any of these constructions are based at the materials at hand, your knowledge and your lack of knowledge, your own and your community’s skills, the season and the landscape.

This material thinking and the base of improviastion is also the base of my own work. I try to tap into this material logic, and a stick is never too long. I never screw, glue, saw, or make other permantent changes. I have no material hierarchy, teak and styrofoam has the same value, it all depends if we can work out a place for it in a construction. When an artwork is no longer needed, I take it apart and use it again. Then perhaps I reassemble the original artwork at a later occasion.