When: 2024

What: Video-installation

Links: https://www.vestfoldkunstsenter.no/nyheter/lena-heggelund-mottar-vestfold-kunstsenters-regionale-stipend-fra-bkh-08-07-2024/ (In norwegian)

Every year, artists in Vestfold municipality holds a collective exhibitions, curated by artists not from Vestfold that also provides a grant to 3 artstist each year. In 2024, Lena was awarded this grant. The jury states :

«Lena Heggelund Re-embroidering

Although we are faced with a screen, we experience here that we are dealing with textiles and garments. We see a costume – a tunic or a dress – with a kaleidoscopic pattern in constant flux. We read that the artist is interested in embroidery traditions and how these are connected to various identities – ethnic and national. By allowing this pattern to be in motion and development on the screen, we experience how the associations shift, from the exotic and foreign, to something more familiar and homely. We find the theme interesting and believe the artist is onto something here that can be further developed and expanded. We congratulate Lena Heggelund on the work Re-embroidering, and wish her the best of luck in the future.»

The paragraph above is translated from norwegian using Gemini AI.

The idea for this installation comes from studies of embroderings on traditional folk garments. The embroderies and use of colours has been used to identify geographical and familiy origins, and is it truly fascinating to observe the differences and similarities across borders and cultures in these embroderies.

Using AI-tools, I was feeding patterns from folk customes from all the countries from which I have origins or have lived myself. Norway, Russia, Syria, Latvia to name a few. These ar fed into the model and transformed from one pattern to another, so there is no way of nowing where one starts and ends, they blend together, they are contrasting, they are familiar and alien – the patterns of migration, travel and belonging.