We look forward to welcoming you to booth 28 at Market Art Fair at Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm, where we will present a solo exhibition of new objects and sculptures by Theresa Traore Dahlberg.
A recurring feature in Theresa Traore Dahlberg’s work is the close attention paid to different materials; the conditions under which they are produced as well as their impact on communities, workers’ identities and personal stories. Andréhn-Schiptjenko’s presentation of Traore Dahlberg includes bronze sculptures and glass objects - all relating to this theme of the inextricable link between people and production, and the meanings that materials are imbued with, even after they have become transformed into something else.
Hakili – The Hare is a series of bronze sculptures inspired by the artist’s grandmother, who was a master storyteller, and an enigmatic bronze hare that Traore Dahlberg found in the collection of The Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. Both grandmother and hare happened to originate from the same city of Boubou-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso. Hares and rabbits are common protagonists in African folktales, often playing the role of the trickster who uses cunning to affect larger and more powerful beings, thus humorously shaping the outcome of the narrative. Traore Dahlberg collaborated with contemporary casters in Burkina Faso to create reworkings of the original hare found in the museum collection.
Traore Dahlberg’s glass objects are the result of various historically and personally charged materials being melted and fused into the glass; creating new purpose for the discarded. Her copper and glass works are based on industrially produced circuit boards – once valuable electronic components that have now become obsolete. Traore Dahlberg’sambiguously titled White Material series instead fuses organic material in the form of cotton yarns into the glass. The white cotton is hand-spun by women in Burkina Faso who have been excluded from their communities after being accused of witchcraft. By gathering in a collective, these women have succeeded in creating a new social existence and becoming financially self-sufficient.
Theresa Traore Dahlberg (b.1983 in Värnamo, Sweden) resides and works in Stockholm, Sweden. She studied 16mm experimental film at the New School in New York and at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 2017, she graduated with a Master of Fine Art from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Traore Dahlberg has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, among them Institut Suédois, Paris (2019); Musée National du Burkina Faso (2019); and most recently Kalmar Konstmuseum, Sweden (2021). She received Beckers Art Award in 2019, which entailed two extensive solo exhibitions at Färgfabriken, Stockholm and Höganäs Museum, Höganäs, Sweden.
Traore Dahlberg has been awarded the Tempo Documentary Short Award for her film The Ambassador’s Wife (2018) which was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Berlin Critics’ Week, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival. This film was likewise included in the programme for Artist Films International, and was as such exhibited at Bonniers Konsthall, Whitechapel Gallery, Hammer Museum, Para/Site Art Space, Ballroom Marfa and Istanbul Modern. Her first film Taxi Sister (2011) portrayed the everyday life of a Senegalese female taxi driver, and her first feature-length documentary Ouaga Girls (2017) was about a group of teenage girls becoming car mechanics in Burkina Faso.
For further information on the presented artworks, please contact Hanna Lundberg: hanna@andrehn-schiptjenko.com
For more information on Market Art Fair, please visit: www.marketartfair.com
