Weight
Elisa Helland-Hansen - Norway
- www.elisa-hh.no
Exhibition 2 - 25 June 2011
At this exhibition Elisa Helland-Hansen invites the visitors to lift up the cups – see, touch, close their eyes and sense weight and gravity.
Elisa Helland-Hansen - VEKT:“In my kitchen live 44 different cups and beakers. They are not randomly chosen. And neither their weight, size, volume, form, surface and expression are random.
Through many years of use, I have noticed how the weight of a cup has its own value and gets importance in the sensuous experience of drinking. An oppressive day, the tea drunk from a heavy beaker may give peace in mind. Coffee in a feather light cup may comfort a fragile condition. Or I can hold a cup, that really irritates... wrong weight for the need of the moment.
This interest in the weight of the cup has resulted in a research of the limits of the cup at a given mass. What possibilities lie in a lump of clay at 222 grams? How many varied expressions can I get from the same weight?
My starting point became a series of 9 beakers with identical profile and size, but with a rise of weight from 111 grams to 999 grams.Through the evaluation of this row of cups grew new series, where the relationship between weight volume and apportion of mass got a special attention. Further on my choice of glaze, colour and pattern became influenced by the character of the specific cup.”