Vernissage: 4 September, at 16.30
An exhibition by Beatrice Brovia (senior lecturer at Konstfack) and Nicolas Cheng (master's alumni 2010).
On 5 February 1869, in the goldfields of Victoria, Australia, two Cornish miners uncovered the world's largest alluvial gold nugget, just 3 cm below the surface. Too massive to be weighed intact, it was named Welcome Stranger—a phrase capturing astonishment, disbelief, and the promise of sudden, immense wealth. A stranger, yes—but a very welcome one.
Referring to that moment of discovery, the exhibition explores how we define curiosity and strangeness—through whose values, perceptions, and systems of knowledge. At its heart lies the idea of the anthropogenic sublime: the unsettling awe that arises from our entanglement with more-than-human natures irrevocably altered by human activity.
(…) By considering post-industrial landscapes, displaced and waste matter, and tracing toxicants dispersed in the environment—all compelling specimens of our current era—the works in the exhibition highlight the porosity of boundaries and the interconnectedness of natural and artificial, body and environment, near and far. Curiosity is approached not as mere wonder, but as an essential, critical attitude—one that allows us to recognize the other-than to be in continuity with, or even already within, ourselves.
About CONVERSATION PIECE
Conversation Piece, a collaborative practice initiated in 2011 by Beatrice Brovia and Nicolas Cheng, can be intended as a hands-on study on interconnectedness and interdependency. An ongoing reflection on ’making-with’ through conversation, misunderstanding and friction, the practice considers the enfolding boundaries that connect materials, bodies, and technology in the complex timescapes of environmental change.
Conversation Piece's work is included in the public collections of, among others, Die Neue Sammlung - Design Musuem Munich; Museum Arnhem; Françoise van den Bosch Foundation - Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Design Museum Den Bosch.