Low, Anne

Thrums will consider the roles embodiment and fragmentation play in the practice and understanding of textiles in relation to sculptural form. Working from a weaver’s perspective within artistic practice, Low’s project will engage with the hyper-determinacy and articulation of cloth to explore ineffable conditions of human behaviour relating to desire, taste and subjectivity. Central to the project is an understanding of textile methodologies and technologies as being virtually unchanged throughout time, yet profoundly shaped by the individuals who hold the tools to engage in such practices. As the very status of textiles is fugitive given they are subject to the unique degradation posed by fibre eating insects, light, dust and time, any understanding of textile history is, in essence, fragmented. This material instability is further fragmented by their use via the household and body which enacts a process of erasure. Evidence of textile history comes from what remains in the form of cloth and record, which is dictated by systems of class and use.

Using hand weaving and adjacent methodologies as a form of embodied primary research, Thrums will consider how subjectivity can be inscribed into materials. The outcome of this research will be work in sculpture and installation that allow textiles to communicate instinctively. Low will explore how a devotion to materiality can produce a certain atmosphere - a metaphorical presence of fumes - to generate an unconscious phenomenological awareness and response. Alongside this work,  a collection of ekphrastic texts will be developed that will consider the relationship between art and material practices relating to living and function within the broader contexts and and histories of decorative art. 

Anne Low is an artist based in Stockholm. Her practice includes sculpture, installation, textiles and printmaking to investigate how particular material methodologies relating to interiors, garments and decorative art are able to unhinge themselves from historical contingency and speak to contemporary subjects.

Recent solo exhibitions include Bury me, Franz Kaka, Toronto (2023); Medlar, Unit 17 Vancouver (2021); Figure like hearse, SAAG, Lethbridge (2020); Chair for a woman, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2019), Paperstainer, Mercer Union, Toronto (2018); A wall as a table with candlestick legs, Tensta Konstall, Stockholm (2018) and Witch with Comb, Artspeak, Vancouver (2017).

Recent group exhibitions include a twister rag in a scallop shell, Astor Weeks, New York (2024); Interior, Michael Werner Gallery, London (2022);  La machine qui enseignait des airs aux oiseaux, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2020); Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara (2019); Soon Enough – Art in Action, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2018) and Separation Penetrates, Mercer Union, Toronto (2017). Her collaboration with Evan Calder Williams, The Fine Line of Deviation, has been exhibited at the 49th Berlinale Forum Expanded, Berlin (2019); Mercer Union, Toronto (2018) and Issue Project Room, New York (2016). Low was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2019 and the Loewe Craft Prize in 2017.

Main supervisor: Maja Gunn
Admitted to: Konstfack
Project period: 2024-2028