Making Nature

Fredrik strid

21 March – 22 September 2024

Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art – will present a solo exhibition by Fredrik Strid in the spring and summer of 2024. The starting point for the exhibition Making Nature is the process-based sculpture project Alla fåglar i Sverige (All Birds of Sweden). The project, which the artist has been working on since 2018, will be shown here in its entirety for the first time. The extensive installation consists of 257 bird species found in Sweden, which have been modelled at full scale in clay and then cast to create candles in white stearin (candle wax). The stearin birds are presented using a specially made shelf system that takes up a large part of the exhibition space. The work becomes a kind of natural history collection. All the birds have a label showing the species name and are arranged in a way that brings to mind the presentation of animals in old natural history museums. The fragile stearin birds create a materiality that leads to reflections on impermanence.

A book with the same title as the work, Alla fåglar i Sverige, was published in 2022. The authors, Leif Holmstrand, Jonas Örtemark and Lars-Erik Hjertström Lappalainen, and photographer Mattias Lindbäck have followed the artist’s process and they share their thoughts in the book on the nature and theme of the project.

The exhibition also presents the sculpture Eko (Echo), which corresponds with Alla fåglar i Sverige and awakens questions concerning museums’ collections, classifications and historiography. Eko has been produced specifically for the exhibition at Skissernas Museum.

Strid has been incorporating nature in his art for quite some time. Through sculptures and installations, he explores his relationship with nature romanticism, nature in museums, natural science and history, and his own experience of actual nature. His works often create a subtle growing tension between the evident and the concealed.

Fredrik Strid (born 1973) studied at the Malmö Art Academy and UCLA in California. In Stockholm, he has held a studio scholarship at IASPIS and taught sculpture at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Strid lived and worked in the USA for many years. His artistic activities are currently based at the Persbo Studio in Uppland, Sweden, where he also runs the Persbo Studio Sculpture Park. Strid has produced public art for Tranøy Sculpture Park in Norway, Malmö Hospital and Umeå University. His latest public art, for the municipal housing company Familjebostäder i Göteborg, will be inaugurated in 2024. Strid is represented in several collections including Eskilstuna Art Museum, Malmö Art Museum, Uppsala Art Museum, Public Art Agency Sweden and Region Skåne. 

Performance: Mellan aftonfalk och ärtsångare

Saturday September 21

The last weekend for Fredrik Strid’s exhibition he makes a performance in four parts (in Swedish). Strid reads from one of his sources of inspiration for the installation All Birds of Sweden: Erik Rosenberg’s classic field handbook Fåglar i Sverige (1953). The performance Mellan aftonfalk och ärtsångare moves Rosenberg’s condensed descriptions of birds into memory images, flashes and shadows. Memory images that create a dialogue to the sculpture installation. In the project, Fredrik Strid wants to capture and highlight his artistic process at an early stage, especially how the mechanisms behind inspiration from another material work for him.

17.00 Aftonfalk till grönsiska

18.00 Grönsångare till ormvråk

19.00 Orre till strandskata

20.00 Stripgås till ärtsångare

Each part lasts 15–25 min.

Read more at Skissernas Museum 90 years

^{Image above: Fredrik Strid, All Birds of Sweden (detail), 2018–2024. Photo: Emma Krantz/ Skissernas Museum}