2023 – CYAN /Oslo

Sirja Moberg

My projects are long-term, and I work with experimental photography, video, light, installation, sculpture and bioart. I am fond of slow analogue and cameraless photo processes because my projects usually take time (years) with research, making field trips, learning techniques and going experimental with them. My practice is experimental and exploratory, while at the same time I have focus on combining art, scientific methods, bioart and visual research.

The thematic focus in my work is human nature relationship and appreciation and examination of nature as a combination of magical and interdisciplinary viewpoints. Our connection to nature, nature  conservation and nature mysticism are at the core of my interest. In particular, I am fascinated by the reality claim and agency of a photograph as a revealer, concealer and delimiter of reality. In our Western culture, what nature photographs that focus on aesthetics do not show us, and what nature does not necessarily show to the impatient eye of the busyness of everyday life, is at the heart of my work. Soil has been a big theme in my recent projects. My artistic field trips to forests of nature reserves, meteorite craters and the fells of the Finnish Sámi Land combine my interest in soil and addressing it through photographic representation.

CYAN gallery presented me as I was invited to Nordic Analog Network's Artist in Residence programme at the CYAN Darkroom in Oslo in the spring of 2023. My exhibition works made during the residency included cameraless photos: photograms made with caffenol developer, soil- and forest material chromatographs, chemigrams and lumen prints. My darkroom work was experimental with elements of bioart and a scientific method via soil chromatographs. The process of chemigrams included using a chemical mixture which contained e.g. parts of soil and forest materials such as lichens and moss I collected from the nature around Oslo. For me, the alternative processes in the residency’s darkroom photograms had a certain sense of magic and I sought ways of revealing something invisible, abstract or unknown in nature. Through a series of soil chromatograph prints, fotograms, lumen prints and chemigrams, I looked at both the representation of the subject through abstract visual patterns and interpretable information collected in photographic paper.

Sirja Moberg (b.1989, Finland) is a visual and photo artist based in Helsinki. She works with long-term projects with experimental photography, video, installation and bioart. She graduated as Master of Arts from Aalto University's photography department in Finland, 2020 and is currently studying a Specialisation Programme in Public Art in Uniarts, Helsinki. Moberg’s had numerous private and group exhibitions in Finnish galleries and her works have been seen in The Finnish Museum of Photography and Finnish Museum of Natural History. Human nature connection and ideas of esoteric nature are at the core of Moberg's art. She is particularly puzzled by how photography acts as a revealer, concealer, and delimiter of these aspects in question, as well as of reality itself. Experimental and cameraless photographic processes and combining them with other art techniques is the force that drives Moberg's practice like an alchemical fuel. Moberg's practice has a focus on combining art, scientific methods, bioart and visual research.

Website: www.sirjamoberg.com