Jesper Eriksson: Fossilized Coal

Artist and designer Jesper Eriksson creates work related to the human, culture, and material. His interest lies mainly in material which influences on culture, through which he attempts to create contemporary narratives to existing historical, socio-economical or cultural context. His work will be presented with Spazio Nobile this Collectible in Brussels with the exhibition Ikebana. TLmag speaks to him about his work and this presentation with our sister gallery Spazio Nobile.

TLmag: How would you describe your work? Do you see your two bachelor’s, Product Design and Industrial Design, and a master in design product influence it?

Jesper Eriksson (JE): My practice revolves around culture, material & humans. It questions, disrupts and creates new realities between these intertwined entities. I’m intrigued about the relation between these and often pose questions such as ‘how or why did we end up here?’

I’m trained as a designer, yet I thrive in presenting my work in a context that is more commonly reserved for art. I believe presenting thought-provoking work through design is a powerful vehicle for presenting new ideas & concepts. It eases communication to the audience as it allows them to relate and grasp new ideas in a simple manner. For instance, one can understand the concept of a stool, when that person then sees the stool as being made of coal, new connections are made and a conversation can start.

TLmag: here seems to be a certain materiality returning to your work. For example, we find the black stone and fine lines recurring, how would you describe this aesthetic?

JE: Aesthetics is a tricky and subjective subject. The way I relate to aesthetics is to be interesting enough to spark interest and delve deeper into the background and rationale of a given project but not be too off-putting to be disregarded altogether!

In collection Coal: Post-Fuel, Fossilized, my aim was to use coal as a structural entity. The collection dealt with the notion of fossil fuel as a materialisation of social relation (see work by Andreas Malm). The material shows both raw and (man-made) processed surfaces. Glass & steel were used either as connecting or separating elements.

TLmag: How do you see the relation between your work/practice and Spazio Nobile?

JE: I’m super excited to be working with Spazio Nobile! They’ve presented work by artist & designer I look up to. Spazio Nobile promotes designers and artists whose work deals with materiality and our human relation to it. Often the work on show presents qualities that I too aim to strive for, namely raw and fierce material, the relation between natural material and human interventions, poetically presented with a strong and worthwhile discourse and timely subjects.

All image credits: Spazio Nobile Gallery