At Konstfack Degree Exhibition 2011 we where dazzled by the work of Simon Klenells master degree project. Through his playfull approach to the craftsmanship his project "Frigger tactics" presents a beautiful series of itemns. Within a production-based craft like glassmaking, there has always been a will to challenge and rewrite the given order of the material and its production.
The working process itself can open up a space for exploration that plays with the material. This project is based on the concept of frigger production. Friggers were and are still objects that the glassblower makes during breaks or when the working day is over. In the older days it could have been hats, walking canes, animal figurines, variations of the ordinary factory production or simple off-hand made vessels, often with an odd look or a humorous undertone.
Photos by Erik Wåhlström
It is a process of material experimentation that is based on lust and the will to expand the potential of a material and its given process of making. In other words it is about conquering traditional knowledge, as well as developing new knowledge, both technically and aesthetically. I became obsessed with this ancient playful tradition of "free making" and could see many parallels to my own artistic practice and the ongoing discussion on craft as research method.
By applying this traditional playful approach to an archetypical state of glass like cut glass, I found myself in a place where I could rewrite its static foundations. With this work, I want to expand the perception of the material values and the material cultural parameters in the material and its given aesthetics. With material culture, I am talking about the interplay between human and the object, an interplay that is explained through the idea of material items carrying both objective as well as subjective layers. Frigger tactics is about formulating material culture from the inside of a material's production process. I am not only crafting objects, but also subjects. Is our visions and ideas based on what we see or how and from where we see it? Photos by Erik Wåhlström.
31 May
Simon Klenell, Frigger tactics
